Posted by Mary Brooke Myers on September 24, 2012:

Dear Amy - I am so glad I was looking at these pages, for my first time, and found your Dad's name. There is rarely a time, when I allow my thoughts to relax, that I don't think of Barry. He was so unique from the rest of us, I often felt like we were moths, drawn to the flame of such an amazing individual. We were on the ski team together which meant we met every day in the late Fall for dry land training - running from West Point to Camp Buckner, sprinting up the steep parking lots, or up the ski slopes, then running gates on the slopes in winter. We talked on the van rides to the slopes, on the ski lifts, and after our ski races. Mostly we talked of skis, school, Montana, and dreams. On the team, Barry felt like one of our brothers. Our team was so very close and friendly, one of the few truly pleasant things I remember about that period of time, as West Point was not the friendliest of environments in those days. We had the best Officers in Charge for our team: Dr. (LTC ret.) Kent Butts, who teaches at the Army War College and the late COL ret. Jim Strozier. They fostered in us a happiness of spirit and drive to excel on and off the ski slopes. Barry was a beautiful skier, strong and graceful, and fearless. He did not need to be encouraged. He was self motivated far beyond the rest. He studied and made excellent grades, was a star man as I recall, at the top of our class, but liked to have fun too. He had a passion for bicycling and road racing. Had his life not been cut so short by illness, Barry would surely have been a household name like Lance Armstrong. Barry was a superb competitor, he had amazing mental toughness to excel. Despite his wonderful, forever young, good looks, he was terribly shy - especially with girls, but to me he was always a wonderful, caring and an amazing friend. I remember, Barry complained of back aches during our senior year, during the ski season in February. He had gone to the doctors, but they could find nothing wrong, he was so amazingly fit and athletic they thought it was a muscle ache. They didn't know the Barry we knew, that he never complained no matter how hard the duty. I am truly sorry you missed knowing your Dad. I am sure his spirit lives on in you. I know what that is like as my father fell ill to a brain tumor shortly after my birth and I only knew him a short while before he succumbed to the disease when I was seven. In all these years, I wish I had known some of his B17 pals from WWII, so they could tell me stories about him. I know that my Dad's spirit is always near me and that he is the one who fills my day with a love for each sunrise and the joy of connecting with people in our small world. I hope that you too feel your Dad's spirit each day and know how much he thinks of you as his finest accomplishment. God Bless you Amy. Please feel free to contact me at any time. Sincerely, Brooke Myers Colonel, US Army Retired USMA class of '83

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