Posted by Jim Chandler on June 12, 2007:

JIM SPRUILL It was March, 1964 at Tan Son Nuit Air Base in South, Vietnam. I was out-processing after my first ?Nam tour. I heard a familiar voice across the room calling my West Point nickname - "Jake". I looked up and there stood my old friend, Jim Spruill. Since I didn't fly out until the next day we agreed to have dinner together that night. I took him to 'Cheap Charlies', a Chinese floating restaurant on the Mekong River. After dinner we sat there until they closed drinking Ba Mui Ba beer. Up early for the first flight out, I went by Jim's room to say goodbye. He was still in bed. I said "Take care, Jim." Jim mumbled back "Have a good flight, Jake". Within a few weeks my old friend would be killed. This loss hit me hard because Jim was my best friend. We first became well acquainted at Camp Buckner, our Yearling year. Each Sunday after Chapel Services we would paddle our canoe out on the beautiful Lake Popolopen. We fished, talked and laughed. Jim was such a delight to be with. Philosophy was his favorite subject. It was on this lake that I got to know the depth of Jim Spruill. It was here that I grew to respect him so much. I agree with how Jim's West Point roommate described him: "I have never found anyone more basically honest, more honorable, more forthright, or anyone so completely and genuinely sincere. Jim was a thinker. He was never willing to accept the pedagogical tirades of the classroom without asking 'why?' - without challenging false premises, without stripping away the sham of false tradition." I am drawn finally to something that Jim once wrote: "You cannot chart such a man, you cannot encompass him, neither can you pass his way without experiencing the sweetness in the air and the strange comforting feeling that comes from the undefined nearness of something real yet unseen." Unknowingly, Jim Spruill was describing himself. Jim Chandler

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