Posted by Roger Baldwin on August 2, 2003:

Tom and I roomed with Dave Ramsay during yearling year. During intra mural football, Tom hyperextend his knee in the wrong direction and required some major knee surgery at the Army hospital. A few days after the surgery, I was visiting Tom along with his girl friend in a visitor?s lounge. Tom was sitting on the couch with his knee propped up using his crutch as a bridge between his couch and one of those tall ashtrays. We were admiring a couple of those metal stitches. Somehow, I bumped the ashtray and the crutch and Tom?s supported knee came crashing down stretching every stitch of the incision. I will never forget his mournful groan as we hurried to get his knee back up in a supported position. Well ? his knee did heal and he never held that act of clumsiness on my part against me! There are many other RAT Rhoades stories from that year and those that followed. He and his wife Camille visited us at West Point in the mid 70?s while I was teaching. We reminisced that it was Camille who was sitting in the hospital that day when I bumped the ashtray more than ten years earlier. Perhaps what I remember most about Tom was his incredible resilience of character and strength of conviction. He would knuckle under to no one.

admin