Posted by Jack Barwis on September 24, 2025:

I grew very close to Jim during our two years together in Company G-2. For example, as Firsties on a springtime long weekend, Jim and I traveled to my hometown in Pennsylvania where we stayed with my family. It is a forever memory; a happy time. After graduation and Airborne training, Jim, G-2 classmate Dave Hopkins, and I were in the same Ranger training squad. Then we three proceeded to Ft Bliss for Air Defense branch officer training. In late December 1965 Jim and Margie married in her New Jersey hometown. It was my honor to serve as Jim's Best Man. Then Jim and I parted ways as the Army assigned us to different stations. Over the years we shared Christmas greetings, but circumstances largely kept us apart. One notable exception occurred early in the new millennium when a get-together at Virginia Beach organized by Dave and attended by the three of us with our brides, Margie, Darlene Hopkins and Jane Barwis. During that vacation sojourn, we replicated an earlier photo of us seated on the ground in Ranger school behind an M-60 machine gun, that we updated to we three seated on the ground behind a golf bag. Times change; friends for life don't change or waiver. Jim had a long and successful career at Johnson &Johnson. I was able to visit him on several occasions in my role as an executive recruiter. Jim's love for his family, his faith, his service to his country, the abiding love of his dear wife Margie are the hallmark of a life well lived. His attributes: kindness, good humor, tolerance, just to name a few among many, mark this exceptional man. He is beyond a doubt one of the finest men I have ever known. Rest in peace, Jim.

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