Posted by George Lawton on June 25, 2007:

Gerry & I essentially started and he ended our Army careers together; we started as classmates at the USMA Prep School at Stewart Field, NY, and he ended his time here on earth in one portion of RVN while I was in another Although many years has passed since this fateful day, I seem to remember learning of his death a day or so later, but whatever I was doing at the time did not permit me go to his service. I remember being on KP one day with Gerry and we were in the back room of the kitchen one afternoon peeling potatoes, probably for the dinner meal. We actually weren't peeling initially as we had access to this modern machine that spun the potatoes round and round against a rough surface of the machine and rubbed the potato skins off. We (probably Jerry, not me- smile) had a bright idea to leave the potatoes in the machine a bit longer than necessary so we would not have to "eye" them, which took some time. The downside of this brillant idea was that the potatoes came out of the machine considerably smatter than the Mess Sergeant thought they should and we were appropriately chastised for our actions. I believe we were given another day of KP as a learning experience; some might have called it punishment. On weekends at the beginning of the month when we still had money from payday, we frequently hit Newburgh. Whereas a number of us would hit the bars, Jerry, if memory serves me still, was again smarter and would go elsewhere where he met and eventually married Arlene after graduation from USMA. Gerry was a smart, quiet and fun guy to be with and I still miss him.

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