Posted by Perry Smith on February 22, 2006:

A STORY ABOUT DON MORELLI BY PERRY SMITH Although Don had many friends who knew him much better than I did, there is one story about Don when he was a top army planner which I would like to share. Don and I became friends at Camp Buckner in the summer of 1953 when we had side by side bunks in the same open bay barracks. Upon graduation, we went our separate ways Don into the Army and I into the Air Force. Hence, I didn't have contact with him for many years. However, in 1981 I had the pleasure sitting in on a briefing by Don which was absolutely dazzling. At the time, Don was a major general and the top long range planner for the Army. I was the director of plans for the Air Force. Don was invited to brief some of the senior officers in the Air Force on airland battle 2000, which he and his staff had developed during the previous year. The briefing was outstanding--full of creativity, humor and substance. He started his briefing with a slide which showed a picture of two goofy West Point cadets which was taken in the summer of 1953. One cadet was very tall and very skinny. He had his black athletic shorts pulled down very low. Another cadet was quite short and also very skinny. He had his athletic shorts pulled up very high--almost up to his armpits. The two cadets were standing side by side and the shorts lined up perfectly even though the tall cadet was 6 foot 3 inches and the shorter cadet was 5 feet 7 inches. As he showed the slide, Don, with a twinkle in his eye, made a cute comment about how folks can get things lined up nicely if they are willing to be innovative. The audience realized that they were observing two good friends, Don Morelli and Perry Smith, as eighteen year old cadets--28 years earlier. Everyone had a good laugh. Don's unstated point was very profound--that is, there were deep friendships across the two military services which would serve us all well as the Army and Air Force worked closely together to develop doctrine, tactics and training to fight a common enemy. Later, when I was the commandant of the National War College, I visited Don a number of times at Walter Reed during the latter stages of his illness--we reminded each other about our crazy antics during that summer so many years before. His wonderful sense of humor stayed with him to the very end.

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