Alan Nicholas Christensen

West Point, 1964

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Tom Kullman on August 1, 1999:

My sister, Brenda Christian, sent me the following story about Al. His wife Maria asked me to post it on his Eulogy Page. On June 3, 1964 as the USMA Class of 1964 completed graduation exercises, the traditional graduation hat toss took place. This is the story of one of the hats from that graduation day in 1964. On the first hat toss, a hat landed in the hands of Brenda Kullman (the 16 year old sister of '64 graduate Tom Kullman). Inside the hat were the initials "ANC". She was thrilled to have caught a graduation hat that day, and took it back home with her to Alabama. Several weeks after graduation she looked in her brother's '64 Howitzer to determine to whom the hat that she caught at graduation belonged. After looking through the Howitzer, she saw that there was only one graduate with the initials "ANC".....Alan Nicholas Christensen. Since her brother Tom, was already off working for his "Uncle Sam", Brenda never mentioned to him that she knew who the original owner of the graduation hat was. Years went by and the treasured hat remained tucked away in the top of Brenda's closet. Through the years as she moved from city to city, the hat moved with her. The hat stayed in the top of her closet until around 1979. By this time Tom's sister was married (now Brenda Christian) and the mother of two little boys. For the next 20 years, the hat stayed on top of either the chest of drawers or the dresser of one or the other of her young sons (Matthew and Russell Christian). The hat remained in the boy's rooms as a proud treasure of the past. It was also a special reminder of their favorite uncle, Tom Kullman, who is truly their hero! All during these years, Brenda had forgotten the name of the cadet she had traced in the Howitzer years earlier. She only remembered that the initials inside the hat were "ANC" (this comes from the many, many times of picking up the hat to dust the room). On July 28, 1999 at 11:30 p.m. in Dunwoody, GA, Brenda had just finished reading the evening Atlanta Journal. She was about to put the newspaper down, but decided to glance at the obituaries (which she usually does not read on a regular basis). As she turned the obituary page, one particular name jumped off the paper at her...Christensen. This last name was the same as that of a dear friend of hers, in addition to being similar to her married name. She quickly read the obituary of a COL Alan Nicholas Christensen USA (Ret.), age 57 who had died recently of Lou Gehrig's Disease. The obituary went on to say that he was formerly of Atlanta, and he resided in recent years in Springfield, VA. Brenda's brother Tom also lives in Springfield and is about the same age. She then read on, feeling strange because of other similarities in the article. When she got to the part that COL Christensen had graduated from the US Military Academy in 1964, her heart started to beat fast. Her eyes immediately went to the top of the obituary and saw that COL Christensen's initials were "ANC". She quickly went into her younger son's bedroom and picked up the faithful, treasured hat from his chest of drawers and looked at the initials on the inside...."ANC"! Remembering that only one member of the Class of '64 had those initials, she was even more shocked and surprised! Sure enough, here was the obituary for the cadet who had tossed his hat in the air that June day 35 years earlier, which she caught and had been treasuring all these years! What are the chances that she would pick up a newspaper somewhere in the world and just happen to read about the death of the original owner of her treasured hat after 35 years? She couldn't sleep most of that night. The next morning, she very excitedly called her brother Tom, who said that he was aware that Al had died and had already made plans to attend his funeral. That same day, she called and spoke with COL Christensen's brother Richard, his sister Karen, and his wife Maria. This was indeed an unusual coincidence, and Brenda decided that Al's hat should return home to his family. Brenda sent the hat to her brother Tom, who gave it to Maria. In a way, this story resembles a note placed in a bottle 35 years earlier and dropped in the ocean. But, after 35 years, the note found its way back to the original owner. (Written by Brenda Kullman Christian) While I didn't know Al very well as a cadet, and our paths rarely crossed in the intervening years, there is a special bond that we in the class of '64 have for each other, and I was saddened at the untimely loss of another one of us. When I learned by E-mail of Al's death, and discovered that we lived near each other, I made plans to attend the funeral Mass and burial. A few days later I received a phone call from my sister Brenda in Atlanta, and she told me about the serendipitous circumstances as to how she found out about Al's death and how she immediately realized that the white cap she caught in the Field House at West Point on 3 June 1964, had been tossed in the air by Al, as we all celebrated our graduation. She sent me the hat, and last night (31 July) my wife Linda and I visited Maria and gave it to her. Sal and Anita Culosi were there with Maria, and they all reminisced about Al's wonderful sense of humor and his courageous last days. We also admire Maria's courage at this difficult time, and again express our deepest sympathy. Tom and Linda Kullman

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