Harold Paul Kindleberger

West Point, 1964

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Dennis Johns on November 7, 2007:

I first met Harold (he preferred to be called by his nick name, "Butch") in the fifth grade at Hillside Elementary School in El Paso, Texas. We seemed to immediately bond as he was born in Michigan, and I lived in Detroit, Michigan before moving to El Paso. He was the type of person one could easily feel comfortable with, and you could always count on him. He loved sports, was a good student, and had a great sense of humor. He had a way of making whoever he was with feel as though they were the most important person in his life. At Burges High School in El Paso, he surprised me with his excellence in the area of ROTC. He became an officer very quickly and rose to the highest ROTC ranks at both Burges and for the entire corps of the El Paso area High Schools. He never developed a big head about his achievement and treated everyone with equal respect and warmth. In short, he was a born leader. His ultimate graduation from West Point was something everyone who knew him felt was preordained. He was a young man in his element. He was born to lead. His death was a real blow to everyone who had ever had any contact with him. He had that affect on you. I will always cherish my friendship with him and will miss him as long as I live.

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