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View a eulogy for Lewis Leonard Boyer, USMA '70, who passed away on March 11, 1971.

Lewis Leonard Boyer

West Point, 1970

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Paul Campbell on November 1, 2005:

I can't believe is has been so very long since we graduated and went off to our lives, and then suddenly Lew was dead, in a horrible automobile accident on the highway close to home in Quincy IL. Dave Porecca sent me the newsclipping and represented us all at Lew's ceremony.

We shared so much during the years together at USMA....he helped me struggle with Russian class and I scrubbed his arm and shoulder after his surgery, and helped him with his rehabilitation exercises. We walked the Area together, and we helped each other with quick shoe changes by the Plebe Sallyport just before hourly inspection (until we got caught). Lew and I strung Japanese Lanterns across the stoops one night while CQ...and got in trouble for that. We double dated in NYC often, and I even helped him one Saturday when two different dates showed up to see him for the weekend....what a balancing act. We got in trouble for racing my girlfriend's car up the alley between the barracks and the cliff face under Building 720, parking by the Mess Hall so we could run into the CQ's office in time to sign in, only to discover the SGT of the Guard standing next to the car chatting with the women when we came back to get our stuff. Lew was the one who helped me hide my car by the construction worker parking when I brought back a 66 Pontiac for Firstie year. Lew was the one who helped me rent out the Glouschter City NJ Holiday Inn so we could resell the rooms for Army-Navy weekend, and Lew was the one behind those really cheap "Beat NAVY" panties so many of us bought in 1969..... some of you may remember the melted cheese sandwiches after Taps, and some of you may recall the smell of a case of Florida oranges in February and the stream of people following the smell to our room, and the airborne qualified hamster...all of those were Lew.

Lew also was the roommate who sabbotaged me regularly, such as placing a desk chair on the floor so I'd hit it when jumping out of the top rack at reveille...but then he also sat with me and helped me with Russian when I got slugged for being late to formation because of that chair. He was the one who put liniment in my jock and then challenged me to cutthroat handball, and he was one who helped sod Johny OConnor's barracks room and helped relocate our NAVY Tac, LT Pearsons', office to the cement outside Eisenhouer Barracks.


He was a good friend, a great classmate, and a promising young man, cut down too early in life for the rest of the world to discover what a wonderful person Lew Boyer was. Paul Campbell D-2

 
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