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View a eulogy for John William Heath, USMA '69, who passed away on October 18, 1975.

John William Heath

West Point, 1969

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Ken Christian on August 31, 2012:

John and I were roommates at least 3 or 4 times over the 4 years at WP. He was into weights, muscle cars, and Kathy. Are you surprised by any of those?

If John wasn't walking tours on the area, he was in confinement to his (our?) room during the week. This provided few problems as he was content to work out with weights while in the room.

One significant problem occurred after we got our new cars two weeks(?) before spring leave. Everyone wanted to put miles on their cars to break them in. The standard procedure since we couldn't leave the Army reservation was to drive the 10+ miles to the entrance to Camp Buckner, turn around at the entrance, and return to West Point proper. We drove as many iterations of this drill as time permitted. The problem for John was that he was in confinement, and couldn't take out his Shelby Ford with the 'shaker' intake on the hood. It was black and ALL power! He humbly asked if I would mind splitting up my time driving my car -- a snazzy little red Fiat hatchback -- and his Shelby. Of course I agreed to help. Sometimes if I was tied up, Terry Bacon (frequently our other roommate) would take out the Shelby. I singularly recall doing about 3 or 4 round trips in my Fiat, returning it to the 'up-the-hill' parking area, searching for John's car, and starting the process over again. For whatever reason, I always managed to pick up a Military Police tail for every trip to Buckner and back! Somehow, Terry and I were able to put on enough miles to satisfy the 'break-in' requirement. John was happy as a lark to be able to leave on spring leave in his bright new Shelby.

I loved John. He was smart, cleaver, spontaneous, and often more bluster than bite. However, one soon discovered that one did NOT make John truly angry. He was a true friend.

I miss him.

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