I suppose I might warn you that I was not asked to address you out of any demonstrable talent for public speaking, a fact which will become obvious to you over the next couple of minutes, but more simply because Moose and I spent sometime together as roommates.
I really cannot reflect on Jim's life without, at the same time, recalling our friends and the times in which we lived. Jim will forever be identified with the West Point Class of 1964, and the history, which engulfed our early years.
We first came together in that innocent summer of 1960. West Point seemed like a good place to be. A graduate was in the White House, Men of West Point was a popular television show, and historians were beginning to talk about a Pax Americana-an American peace-built on American arms, and lead, we hoped, by West Pointers.
In many ways, Moose typified that innocence. New England born and bred, you could sense in his words and demeanor, the idealism of Henry Thoreau, and the uninhibited patriotism of a Joshua Chamberlin .
Like many of us, the easy going Moose recoiled a bit at the harshness of Beast barracks, but he was always quick to see the humor in of our parochial existence. Our paths first crossed when we were assigned to the same company for the academic year. At this point, I need to tell you, that as a cadet I was, using today's jargon, academically challenged. In fact, so severe was my affliction that my disappearance from West Point, was a distinct possibility? Fortunately however, the minor deities that ruled over our little world took pity on me and condescended to provide some much-needed relief. Enter James Peter Mozden.
Now Jim was an excellent student. Obviously well prepared in those idyllic New England public schools of the 1950's, he had, in addition, a natural proclivity for teaching. In time, he came to relish the role, and for the balance of his cadet career, would coach those less fortunate in the wonders of calculus, electrical engineering and the like. My enduring memory of Moose from cadet days is of him standing before a black board, in the basement of our barracks, dressed in his bathrobe and slippers, explaining the intricacies of differential equations.
Jim graduated 144th out of a class of 565. By his own admission, he could have done much better. But frankly he had, in my opinion, an admirable lack of ambition. It was particularly admirable at an institution where ambition was handsomely rewarded, especially in the academic disciplines where he excelled. To Moose, the camaraderie of a card game or golf match, was far more enticing, than any badge or certificate served up by an impersonal institution, even those he dearly loved, as he did West Point and the Army.
Recalling the minor incidents from Plebe year prompts in me the fear that if one were not there, the importance and humor is nearly impossible to appreciate or describe. Despite that concern, I will tell you that Moose, and our other roommate, Fritz Hess, gave me a perspective that allowed me to prevail and made a fairly austere existence, truly memorable. If Fritz was the ringleader, Moose was the enthusiastic participant, regardless of whether we were colluding to smuggle a pint of vodka into our room to celebrate Moose's arrival, cramming for another exam, or just listening to Fritz's running commentary on cadet life. Moose would often play an ebullient Ed McMahon to Fritz's Johnny Carson, and I, the slow witted audience, would occasionally pick up the humor on my own, but if not, vicariously have my spirits lifted by simply watching Moose dissolve into laughter, as if he were being physically tickled.
Just for the record, I did not disappear. Moose succeeded in his assigned mission, though it was a bit of a cliffhanger that first semester. As I recall it, the end of first semester Plebe year was highlighted by the participation of the Corps of Cadets in the Presidential Inaugural parade of John Kennedy. For those who can't or don't remember, there was a massive snowstorm on the East Coast, coupled with a strike by the New York Central Railway. These coincident calamities provoked a contest between the tactical department, which was charged with getting us to Washington, and the academic department which was trying to locate those unfortunates, who had not passed their final examinations, and were being confined at West Point for another round of similar tortures. As the snow fell , we began to load the busses for New York, and simultaneously the names of those required to remain, were read out over the loud speaker. As the announcer passed by the N's Moose 's obvious excitement at my having passed, was perhaps even greater than my own. He was like that. With Jim it was never whether he personally had succeeded, but whether he had contributed to the whole, that he was on the team.
Time at West Point passed quickly. In my recollection there were four Navy games, three Christmas leaves, three Spring Breaks. There was really only one reveille formation, having seen one you pretty much had seen them all, one parade, one breakfast formation and so forth. Nevertheless, there were events that marked the passage of our cadetship. One of those events was the arrival of Paul Dietzel as head coach for Army football. Dietzel had coached LSU to a national championship and had been lured way to redeem Army's fallen football fortunes. As part of his arrival on campus, Dietzel announced that he would conduct open try-outs for varsity football. He apparently believed our redemption was in the Corp, we just had to find out who it was.
That clarion call went to the heart of Jim Mozden's persona. Yes there was an Army team within the Corp, and he might just be part of it. As he said to Tommy Curran "didn't I always have great hands? Might not my mix of moxie and grit carry the day?"
Well, Jim did not make the cut, but his participation was a treasured experience of his cadet career. Years later he would reminisce about the inspiration of those practice sessions and the magical opportunities they implied. He would quote Dietzel's instructions verbatim and expand on their underlying wisdom' For Jim the possibilities were always endless and his participation was never in question.
Despite our preoccupation with the minutia of cadet life, and the belief that graduation was the threshold to greater personal freedom and fulfillment, there were worldly currents permeating our monastic stronghold, that warned of events that would threaten, not only our pursuit of happiness, but our very lives themselves.
In June of 1962, John Kennedy addressed the Corp of cadets and predicted that our battles would not be fought on the steppes of central Europe, as in World War II. Rather our battlegrounds would be in the backwash of the third world, where the struggle for the hearts and minds of most of mankind, was already underway. We began to read books like Bernard Fall's Street without Joy, and words like insurgency, counterguerilla warfare, and nation building began to creep into our lexicon.
Graduation, graduation leave, weddings for some, came in June of 1964 along with confident expectations that America's hour was at hand and we, the class of 1964, were on the saber's edge. Branch selection was a big decision for many of us. Moose selected the infantry, I think because he believed there in dwelled the essence of army life. It was the marrow, and very simply where he wanted to be.
Those golden days following graduation began to fade rapidly. Within a year, our first classmate had fallen to enemy fire. American combat units were moving overseas, not to return for many years. By 1968, America had committed its lifeblood to a desperate struggle, both with and against, the ancient people of Vietnam. For the infantry officer corps this struggle consumed its very spirit. Those were, in my memory, the worst of times. The war and its wrath sacrificed families, friendships, careers, trust, honor and of course that most precious commodity life itself. In its wake, it left heartbreak, discouragement, bitterness and despair. And Moose, as you will hear in a moment, was in the thick of it all.
Nowhere outside of Vietnam itself was this havoc felt with greater intensity than at Fort Bening, Ga., home of the US infantry. It was there, just four short years after graduation that Moose and I again found ourselves thrown together. It was there in that crucible of America's anguish that my memories of Moose burn most brightly.
Our lives then, were not dissimilar to those of other young men and women, who in other times and other places, have found themselves caught in the maelstrom of a senseless and confusing war. Hemmingway would have felt at home there. Given our profession, and the casualty rates for company grade officers, there was a devil may care attitude, that manifested itself in a great deal of what today might be described as self-medicating alcoholic mayhem. While very well aware, that many Americans were turning their backs on the bloodletting being done in their names, we found empathy amongst our own while rotating back and forth to the killing zones. Our anxieties were reflected only in the women, who, left behind, were condemned to a lifetime of grieving for their lost husbands, brothers, sons and lovers, and living with an agony, of a lost life never reclaimed , and a broken heart never mended.
Moose was a bachelor in those days, that is until Mary Jo rescued him from that dismal state. He was a mainstay at the officers club on Friday nights, and at the fairly endless round of weekend revelries. His good cheer was infectious. For those of us hopelessly sunk in the cynicism of the times, Moose was the implacable foil. He never complained, never questioned the righteousness of our cause, or the right of those who protested it. He never lost his objectivity, his love for the Army, or his confidence in his own judgment. Victory was always possible, defeat was never foregone.
As our year came to an end, Moose symbolically announced his forthcoming marriage to Mary Jo. His bachelor party will long be remembered by those who survived it. Since a record of those activities is tucked away in the archives of the Columbus, Georgia Police Department, there is no need for me to reminisce in detail at his time. Suffice it to say, Mary Jo, that I greatly feared your being left at the altar, thus incurring the never to be forgiven wrath, of a woman I had not yet, even met. But that of course did not happen. Your wedding day was beautiful. And, as it happened, it was the last time I saw Moose.
People often remember traumatic events in some detail and such was the case when I became aware that Moose was gone. I was meeting another infantryman, Ken Moorefield by name, at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Georgetown. When he asked if I had heard about Moose, I remember my confusion. How could that be ? He had made it home. I knew that to be true. But, as we all began to learn, the war was not done with us. It had leached out into our blood and would over time continue to feed its own insatiable appetite, even as the guns of that seemingly endless conflict, finally began to fall silent.
I am a Christian by birth and conviction, so I believe that Moose is in far better place than what he left behind . But I regret that he did not get the chance to see the good times. The mended minds and healed bodies, the children and grandchildren, the graduations and first communions, the ski trips, and reunions with his slowly mellowing classmates.
So I mourn for myself, and all those others who loved him. Our world is a better place for his presence in it . And I, flawed as I may be, am a better man. Thank you Moose.
Your roommate, and West Point classmate
Harwood Nichols
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