Posted by Don Sheehan on September 10, 2011:

I had not known Dick at West Point, since he was in Company B-1 and I was in D-2. Neither did I know him during our active duty service, for he had served in the Signal Corps, and I had "slipped the surley bonds of earth" to fly in the world's greatest Air Force. Although both Dick and his wife Eva, and DORRIE and I had lived in the same small New England town of Tewksbury, Massachusetts for 35 years, we had never met until our 25th reunion, when my roommate, Farrell Patrick, introduced us. Dick and Farrell had been classmates at the Signal Corps school at Fort Monmouth. From that introduction a close, warm, and lasting friendship developed. Dick and Eva, DORRIE and I watched the Army-Navy game at our home every year. Dick helped me in a unique gardening project. Eva gave us plants from her garden, and Dick supplied us honey from his beehives. The Chases entertained us at their Squirrel Island retreat in Maine. We celebrated Christmas with enjoyable dinners at one anothers' homes. Dick and I enjoyed frequent Saturday morning breakfasts together, during which we exchanged war stories, and I learned of some of his extraordinary achievements. Dick had left the Army after three years and pursued a master's degree in physics from RPI (during which time he met and married Eva). Dick worked for the Argonne laboratories in Illinois, and they began their family. Eva and Dick moved to Massachusetts, where Dick completed his work for a PhD in high energy physics. He was a principal contributor to the development of the lens for the Hubble telescope. Eva and Dick raised their three children in a loving home environment. Dick was a briliant scientist, yet ever so humble. In recent years dementia robbed him of his vitality, and his health and well-being required him to settle in an assisted living facility, where he thrived. Two weeks ago Eva, DORRIE, and I enjoyed lunch with Dick at Edgewood in North Andover, MA. For two hours he was "the young and vital Dick Chase." That is how we will remember this special member of The Long Gray Line.

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