John Stalker Price

West Point, 1964

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by PETER D`ALESSANDRO on September 13, 2025:

While poring through Classmate Obits, I pulled up Sam Burney`s well writ encomium for Jack Price. What a guy! The Playboy episode alone should keep his name in the record books at least until we of `64 have all departed. It was 1967 at Fort Carson when my housemate, Fred Coleman, and I received a call from Jack, who was based at Fort Lewis. For whatever reason he was headed our way for an intermediate stop, to Benning I believe. Anyway, we`d prepared a nice dinner for him and he appeared right on time -- and on a motorcycle no less! I believe he`d been traveling for two days and was a bit bedraggled. In fact, his behind was so tender that he couldn`t sit down at the table. And thus, he stood for the entire meal, eating off the fireplace mantle and rattling on about the hijinks we`d each been famous for at the academy. It was the Jack we knew and admired, in full flourish, and ever armed with a good yarn, but always interested in each of our plans for the future. Much, much later, when we`d all married and had children, Martha and I spent time with him and Sam in S Cal. We had a wonderful stay, and Martha, being a certified gemologist, had lots to discuss with Jack, who`d migrated into the same field. And of course, Sam was a dreamboat, and the kids were so much fun to be around. Despite his VN travails and damage to his arm, Jack had a lot for which to be thankful. I spoke with him by telephone a day or two before he died. Of course he was in the hospital, but he rattled on as if it wasn`t anything serious at all. Thus, it was a horrific shock to later learn that he`d expired. No doubt he made his mark on our class, and the jam-packed church for his final sendoff was an apt testament to the number of friends he`d made where he and Sam had settled. How we both wish they both were still around to liven things up.

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