Posted by Lee Kernis on June 5, 2012:

I was not a military man, nor was I ever in the service, but I grew up with John from when we were born until he went to West Point after we graduated high school in Bergenfield New Jersey. John lived across the street and about 3 houses up from my own. I don't know if an outsider is welcome on this site but wanted to add my thoughts about a great guy. I was stunned to hear he passed away when he did and still can't believe it. I recently stopped in our old neighborhood driving to Newark Airport on my back home to Los Angeles and saw our street and homes and emotionally transported me back to when John and I shoveled driveways in the winter, played baseball up the block and hung out every weekend in the school years. John was the kind of kid who had the moral and ethical equivalent of an adult when many adults didn't couldn't even match those attributes. He always stuck up for the little guy and was the kind of guy if he was "picking sides" for a pick-up baseball game, always chose the lesser athlete first, as he couldn't stand to see the "kid usually picked last" sad with his head down just waiting to see if he could play. He taught me alot, and because we were the same age and had alot of the same neighborhood experiences, I didn't come to appreciate what a different person he truly was until way after we had lost touch for many years and my brother had run into him at LaGuardia Airport and we had a conversation about him, a few years before he passed. When I read his obituary, I was also saddened that I never knew how accomplished he was in life and that I never got the chance to see him again. He lived a life only to be admired and knew what he wanted out of life way before any of us could only dream of the future.

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