William Totten Cummings

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by James L Dean on December 30, 2022:

I met Bill in the BOQ at Fort Carson, CO in 1960. I was attached to the 9th Division Military Intelligence Unit and he was in the 5th Missile Battalion. Three of us from the BOQ decided to find housing off post and found a great bachelor's house on the flanks of Cheyenne Mt., overlooking Colorado Springs. We were able to score the house because Bill's father carried a lot of weight, being the commanding general of the 5th Army, with HQ in Ft. Sheridan. He vouched for us, perhaps not a wise move on his part. I witnessed Bill's slowly evolving courtship of Margaret, who was working as a nanny for the Mollas, a couple living in the area. Colorado Springs was full of girls looking for mates in those days, and we pursued a few of them. Bill and Igot drunk together at Cripple Creek and barely made it back to duty on time. We took old skis and visited the great sand dunes in the San Luis Valley, hoping to ski down. Didn't work. We cooked forgettable bachelor dinners. Bill sometime wrote short, amusing pieces for the base newspaper, "The Mountaineer," for which I was also a writer and sometimes an editor. We had great times together, though I did not accompany him when, on New Year's day, he climbed Pike's Peak in combat boots. I saw Bill take command of a 5th Missile training session and was greatly impressed. He was an impressive officer, though he told me that he finished near the bottom of his class at West Point, doing just enough to stay afloat. After I left the Army (2 year tour), married, and taught at Southern Oregon College, I didn't see Bill and Margaret again until I was on a sabbatical leave in Europe. Bill and Margaret were in Heidelberg, and we visited them there. Later they visited us in Oregon and we returned the favor by calling on them in Silver City, in the years after they left Las Cruces and built the straw bale house. Over the years Bill and I wrote occasional letters. His were sometimes wild, quirky, amusing, and full of life. When he had his stroke, I was surprised, for he was a wonderfully fit and healthy guy. Bill seemed to me a damned fine officer, and I always counted him as a good friend. He was proud as hell of Steven and Juliette, and he and Margaret seemed made for one another. I have great memories of him and mourn his loss. I send belated sympathies, having just learned of his death earlier in the year. --Jim Dean

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