Jerry Linwood Denman

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by West Point 1955 on July 6, 2019:

Jerry L. Denman 1955 Cullum No. 20432-1955 - December 22, 2013 Died in Sardis, MS Interred in Rose Hill Cemetery, Sardis, MS. Colonel Jerry Linwood Denman, the second son of Kenneth Arlington and Evelyn Terrell Denman, was born in Memphis, TN. When Jerry was five, the family moved to the Denman farm in Paynes, MS. Jerry's boyhood years were spent in that rural area, where he enjoyed hunting, fishing, and exploring the Mississippi River Delta. In 1946, the family moved 50 miles north to Sardis, MS. Jerry attended Sardis High School, where he was a 145-pound linebacker on the state-champion football team and president of his senior class. Jerry received an appointment to West Point and, on July 3, 1951, became a member of the Class of 1955. His pronounced southern drawl was a source of levity for the Beast Detail and his classmates. "Sardis, NOT Sawdust, SUH!" Jerry was assigned to M-l in South Area. He graduated midway in his class and branched Infantry. On a blind date during graduation leave, Jerry met Anita Corinne Haney. He proposed in August before leaving for Fort Benning, GA, and in December they were married in Memphis. After completing the Infantry basic course, Jump School, and Pathfinder School, Jerry was posted to Fort Campbell, KY as a rifle platoon leader with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. Jerry and Anita's first daughter, Dianne, was born in October 1956. In the summer of 1957, Jerry was posted to the Army Language School at Presidio of Monterey to study Persian, with subsequent assignment to MAAG Iran. Jerry left Anita and Dianne in Memphis to await the birth of their second daughter and traveled to Monterey to begin language training. Andra was born in November, and Anita and their two daughters joined Jerry in December. Jerry finished language school first in his class. He settled Anita and the girls in Memphis before departing for Iran, where he was assigned to Training Team 6 in Mashed, about 600 miles northeast of Tehran. Returning from Iran to Fort Benning in 1959, Jerry was assigned to the Infantry School's Map Reading Committee. A third daughter, Lou Ann, was born in August 1961, and Jerry was assigned as a student to the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning. Upon Jerry's graduation, the family moved to Fort Bragg, NC, where Jerry served in the 82nd Airborne Division as a battle group staff officer and then commander of Company E. In the spring of 1963, Jerry was selected as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Willard Pearson, Chief of Staff of Headquarters Land Southeast, NATO. Jerry traveled to Turkey with General Pearson in April, and Anita and the girls joined him later that summer. Returning to Fort Campbell in 1965, Jerry served as assistant G3, 101st Airborne Division. In 1966, Jerry volunteered for Vietnam, where he served as 1st Brigade adjutant, 101st Airborne, then as S3, 1st Battalion, 327th Airborne Infantry. He was decorated twice for valor. Returning Stateside, Jerry served one year on the CONARC training staff prior to attending Command and General Staff College. Upon his graduation in 1969, he was assigned to the Army Training Directorate in the Pentagon. That three-year tour was followed by a two-year accompanied assignment to Fort Richardson, AK, where Jerry served as XO of the 173rd Snow Hawk Brigade and commander of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry. Following a successful battalion command, Jerry received orders in 1974 to the Army War College. After graduating, Jerry returned to the Pentagon, where he served in the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Jerry reported to Fort Campbell as deputy post commander in the spring of 1979. Anita and youngest daughter Lou Ann remained in Arlington until Lou Ann graduated from high school, whereupon Anita joined Jerry at Fort Campbell, and Lou Ann followed her sisters to Abilene Christian University. Jerry retired in 1983 to accept a position on the staff of the Quince Road Church of Christ in Memphis. While serving there, Jerry received and accepted an invitation to join the staff of World Christian Broadcasting. Jerry and Anita then moved to Abilene, TX, the location of the administrative offices of World Christian Broadcasting, where Jerry served as the director of development. In 1993, after World Christian Broadcasting consolidated its administrative offices and studios in Franklin, TN, Jerry and Anita moved to their vacation home in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Jerry continued serving on the World Christian Broadcasting staff until his 1996 bypass surgery (his second). After recovery, Jerry resigned, and he and Anita moved to Decaturville, TN, where Anita had been raised. Jerry and Anita lived in Decaturville longer than they lived anywhere else. In 2003, Jerry received and accepted an invitation to join the board of World Christian Broadcasting. In the spring of 2010, Jerry and Anita bought a house in Sardis, the place where Jerry went to high school and from which he entered West Point 59 years earlier. While living in Sardis, Jerry served as chaplain of the American Legion Post. In his life, Jerry made the circle from Memphis, TN, where he was born; to Sardis, MS, from where he entered West Point; through an Army career as an Infantry officer from Fort Campbell around the world and back to Fort Campbell; and then, upon retirement, back to Memphis and eventually back to Sardis. In Sardis' Rose Hill Cemetery, there is a black granite tombstone on which are carved the names of Jerry Linwood Denman and Anita Haney Denman. Under those names, a carved phrase in capital letters reads, "HERE A SOLDIER AND HIS WIFE AWAIT THE TRUMPET CALL."

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