Duty, Honor, Country
Timeless and Tested, West Point Tradition Continues Sculpting Military Leaders

Their stiff-collared gray uniforms have changed little since 1837. They face demanding academic and training regimens—first prescribed for their predecessors in the 1820s. And every hour of the day they are surrounded by buildings, statues, monuments, and streets bearing the names of prominent alumni: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Grant, Lee, Patton, Pershing, Bradley.
As if lifestyle, garb, and surroundings weren’t reminders enough of their heritage, cadets attending the United Stated Military Academy at West Point, New York, this year are experiencing an even healthier dose of history and tradition than normal. The academy, known universally as simply “West Point,” is observing its bicentennial. Since 1802, the institution has groomed and fielded officers to lead U.S. military units ranging from platoons to entire armies. These days, about one-fourth of the Army’s demand for new officers gets filled by West Point graduates.
The bicentennial celebration comes at a time when the role and mission of the military—and the likelihood and very nature of warfare itself—are uncertain. But if there is apprehension among the 4,000 members of the Corps of Cadets, it doesn’t show.
“Whether it be to fight terrorism, warlords, oppression, or hunger, I know I’ll be ready to go,” declared Joseph “Joey” Williams, a yearling (sophomore) cadet who hails from Black River Falls. “I signed up to serve, and I’ll do so at a moment’s notice.”
Joey, son of Jackson Electric Cooperative members Joe and Maria Williams, is one of three cadets currently at West Point whose families live on Wisconsin electric co-op lines. The others are Elsa Johnson, daughter of Chippewa Valley Electric member Roxanne Johnson of Holcombe, and Joshua “Josh” Glonek, son of Gerald Glonek, who lives on Head of the Lakes Electric lines near Gordon.
Elsa and Josh are “firsties,” senior cadets in their final two semesters of the four-year program at West Point. Next spring, each will graduate with a bachelor of science degree and be commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army. For the four solid years of training and education provided them by the government, they will devote at least five more years to active-duty military service after graduation.
“Not only have I received a great education, but more importantly, I have developed the skills necessary to become a successful Army officer,” said Josh. “I feel confident that I will be able to lead my soldiers to accomplish any mission presented to us, whether it be direct combat operations or some type of peacekeeping role.”

Revolutionary Roots

During the American Revolution, the Continental Army experienced a severe lack of trained officers, so George Washington in his presidency suggested creating a training institution to bring professionalism to the new nation’s military. Controversial, the proposal finally won the endorsement of President Thomas Jefferson, who signed the order creating America’s first military academy at the site of a Revolutionary War fortification on the Hudson River 50 miles north of New York City.
The U.S. Military Academy (USMA) occupies a 16,000-acre expanse that—in addition to rugged terrain for field training—includes its trademark cluster of gray, fortress-like academic, administrative, athletic, and housing facilities overlooking the river.
The early academic mission of the academy was to develop skilled engineers to help the Army meet the needs of a rapidly expanding nation. Although the curriculum was eventually broadened to include other fields of study, an engineering emphasis remains; all cadets are required to either major in some form of engineering or take numerous courses in a particular engineering “track.” Elsa Johnson is a mechanical engineering major; Josh Glonek majors in economics, but also follows a civil engineering track. Cadets select their majors and fields of study near the start of their second academic year at USMA, and Joey Williams did so last month, picking international relations as a major and systems engineering as his track.
Many West Point grads go on to earn graduate degrees while continuing to serve in the Army. “I would like to get my master’s in mechanical engineering and maybe come back here to teach in the department as a captain,” said Elsa. Josh and Joey also expressed desires to eventually obtain advanced degrees.

Tough Road

As is the case with all of America’s service academies (Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine), there is an arduous application process prospective candidates must complete. For most cadets at West Point, their journey began with filling out lengthy forms and seeking nominations from a member of Congress. If their high school and civic accomplishments made them look impressive on paper, then they advanced to various interviews with selection committees.
If a nomination comes from a member of Congress, if the Army qualifies the candidate physically, and if West Point makes an offer of appointment, the student can show up on “R-Day” (reception day) and begin his or her academy experience. Joey got his appointment from Rep. Ron Kind; both Elsa and Josh received theirs from Rep. Dave Obey.
On average, only one out of every 12 applicants gets in the door, and of the 1,200 who start out in each new class, more than 20 percent will leave before graduation. West Point is routinely ranked among the top five toughest American colleges to get into.

Culture Shock

From being tops in their high school classes, new cadets get immediately shorn of civilian recognition (and hair) and experience a summer-long physical and mental pummeling known appropriately as “beast barracks.” Turned over to firsties and “cows” (juniors), for indoctrination, the “plebes” (freshmen) experience a humbling crash course in military procedure, protocol, deportment, and core values.
Hollywood and news programs have made the scenes legendary: upper class cadets chewing out hapless plebes for all manner of infractions and demanding on-the-spot recitations of memorized fact and lore. There is a purpose to it all. It trains young minds to quickly absorb information, to sift out the important from the trivial, and to use the knowledge under stress. Tested thousands of times in combat during the past two centuries, the conditioning has more than proved its worth.
“I am truly convinced that the spectrum of and speed at which we learn things at West Point are unparalleled at any institution anywhere,” related Joey. “I can’t begin to express how much I have learned academically, militarily, physically, and in terms of people, leadership, time management, and so much more. It’s been an absolutely amazing experience for me thus far.”
Elsa, who had charge of 10 plebes during beast barracks in 2001, noted one of the key concepts drilled into cadets from their very first hour on post has to do with honor. “You learn to take responsibility for your own actions and weigh your decisions. ‘A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do’—that’s the honor code,” she said, telling how she has served as her company’s representative on the Honor Committee, a panel that investigates violations of the code. Severe or repeated violations are grounds for dismissal from the academy.

On the Move

The West Point commitment is more than the normal two academic semesters of a college environment. Cadets are considered active-duty military, and their summers are taken up with training, often with regular-Army units. Although the first and second summers feature prescribed “basic” training in the field and on-post, cadets in their third and fourth summers partake of a variety of advanced opportunities. For example, Elsa and Josh have both completed airborne and air assault training. Between 15 and 18 percent of cadets at West Point are women, and Elsa is one of only three in the current Corps of Cadets to have graduated from both schools.
“It’s not every summer you can jump out of planes and rappel from helicopters,” Elsa laughed, adding that the rest of her summer consisted of leadership training with an Army aviation unit in Ft. Hood, Texas. Other cadets may spend a month job-shadowing officers of military units stationed virtually anywhere the world. Some serve in university, government, and business internships during their summers. And, of course, all upperclassmen participate in some phase of summer training as instructors for the lower classes. In addition, all West Point juniors and seniors get chances to take leadership posts within the 4,000-member corps, assignments patterned after U.S. Army organization. Josh and Elsa are currently platoon leaders, in charge of about 30 cadets.

Athletes All

Douglas MacArthur, in his years as superintendent of West Point, is credited with bringing a focus on athletic training that survives to this day. “Every cadet is an athlete. If you are not involved in the intercollegiate-level sports or club sports, you participate in intramurals,” said Elsa, who played three years of junior varsity basketball and now referees spirited basketball games between company teams. Josh is playing intramural basketball and has played on his company’s football and rugby teams. Joey ran intramural cross-country and is trying freestyle wrestling this semester.
Cadets are expected to meet strictly prescribed standards for physical fitness, and they are consistently tested to ensure conditioning levels are being maintained. Failure on any aspect of the tests could be grounds for separation from the academy.

Gaining Rank

From the moment they report to West Point on R-Day, cadets are evaluated on three categories of training: academic, military, and physical—weighted in that order. A cadet’s combined score on all three determines class rank, which becomes important in determining eligibility for specialized training and ultimately which Army branch and post he or she will get following graduation. Elsa and Josh—both with consistently high class rankings—stand a good chance of getting their first picks of Army branches: Elsa to aviation school at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, and Josh to infantry and Ranger School at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Joey, two years away from branch selection, is also considering aviation.
“I am looking forward to graduating and getting into the Army,” said Josh. “My stay at West Point has required a lot of hard work and long days, but there is no place I would rather be right now, especially in the world we live in today.”
“Duty, honor, country” are three timeless words inscribed on the crest of each West Point Class; on the class rings all firsties wear; on buildings, monuments, banners, and flags everywhere at the 200-year-old academy; on the buttons and emblems worn by all cadets.
They also become imprinted on youthful minds and hearts.

War on Two Fronts
Fay Johnson fought in war-torn China and then came home
to do battle a different kind of enemy.

Moving through the crowd at the Barron Electric Cooperative annual meeting, the emblem catches the eye: a little Bengal tiger with two white wings, bounding across an azure field, accented by a white star with a red center. Some people get excited about old airplanes. Many appreciate the sacrifices others have made to ensure their comfort and security. From both perspectives, the small enameled emblem and the apparent age of its wearer send up a flare in the brain that says here is someone to be thanked.
Fay Johnson of Cumberland, Wisconsin, is clearly proud of the “Flying Tigers” choker on his bolo necktie, and when—fit and trim at 83—he tells an interviewer that he himself “looked like a tiger” in his younger days, there is no inclination to doubt him.
He and his family have owned a home on Washburn County's Gull Lake, served by Barron Electric, for the past 20 years.

Duty Called

Johnson earned his way to wearing the tiger emblem doing what a lot of Americans did for a good part of the 20th century and appear destined to do again in the 21st: risk life and limb to preserve their own freedom and to restore freedom—or introduce it—in parts of the world most of them never expected to see.
In Johnson’s case, that part of the world was China, and though freedom remains an elusive concept there, when he left in 1945 the nation was at least free of the invading Japanese armies that had been gradually eating it up for the preceding 14 years.
Japan’s imperialism and its unholy alliance with Nazi Germany accounted for the urgency in creating the Flying Tigers, then known as the American Volunteer Group (AVG), early in 1941. That was almost a year before America’s formal entry into World War II, and the pilots and support crews—barely 300 Americans who would make their shark-mouthed P-40 fighter planes a legend—were employees not of the U.S. government but of the Chinese.
In their brief seven months of operations as the AVG, they destroyed some 300 Japanese aircraft and claimed an additional half that many as probable kills, suffering just 22 fatalities themselves. The AVG was reorganized as the 74th, 75th, and 76th Fighter Squadrons of the U.S. Army Air Corps on the Fourth of July, 1942.
By then Fay W. Johnson, native of Lime Ridge and resident of Hillsboro, Wisconsin, was, as they say, government property. In April 1942, he enlisted in the Air Corps as an aviation cadet, then continued in civilian employment until the Army’s processing and training apparatus was ready for him late in October.
Disappointment awaited. With a year of college and highly disciplined pre-flight training under his belt, Johnson was confident of his qualifications. Confidence in his flying proved a different thing. He encountered an unexpected and unexplained fear of flying an airplane himself, even though he was fine with someone else at the controls.
Washing out of pilot training hit Johnson hard. “To have all that dashed into the ground was kind of hard to take. I didn’t know what to do; I was kind of numb,” he says. What he did do was go on to train as a radio operator and aerial gunner, and he excelled at both.
“We did quite a bit of skeet shooting,” he says. “I was real good with the machine gun.” Still, with a trace of disappointment he notes, “I hated to lose my commission. It went down the tube but I still got my wings.”

Into the Big Leagues

While Johnson underwent the ups and downs of training, the AVG was evolving rapidly. It went from three Chinese pursuit groups into the three U.S. fighter squadrons, then into the larger China Air Task Force, and finally into an American Air Force unto itself, the 14th. The unit retained the “Flying Tigers” moniker.
In October 1944, Johnson arrived at the Flying Tigers’ base near Kunming, China, having flown “the hump”—the air route over the Himalayas from India and, Johnson says, the only secure way for the 14th Air Force to obtain supplies.
“I’d have to say that by the time I got to Kunming they [the Japanese] had about everything that was worth possessing in China, so all the gasoline for flying had to be flown over the hump; there was no other way to get gasoline there.”
If persuading oneself to fly missions that involved a high probability of facing enemy fire presented one set of challenges, coaxing fully-loaded and sometimes overloaded airplanes, typically of 1930s design, to clear the highest obstacles on the face of the planet most definitely presented another. The hump has been called the world's most treacherous air route. The proof lies in the Himalayas. Some of the crews and the precious supplies they carried are still there.
“It took some kind of sticking your neck out, really. We have to take our hats off to those people,” Johnson says, as he notes that supply shortages did make it harder to conduct operations against the Japanese.
“That cut things down a bit,” he says.
Nevertheless, as a radio operator and waist gunner in B-25 Mitchell bombers with the 491st Bomber Squadron, Johnson was on flying status throughout almost a year in China. On about a dozen occasions, he ventured forth against targets where he could expect to be on the receiving end of Japanese bullets and shellfire. Later, he also flew a number of air-drop cargo missions.
The summons to combat could come at any time of day or night. Missions of the 491st would last on average four or five hours and typically involved attacking Japanese military targets, railroads, trains, and other infrastructure, Johnson says. He adds that he never saw a Japanese airplane that wasn’t already wrecked, without bringing up the fact that ground fire, which he did face, has historically accounted for more aircraft losses than fighter opposition.
As 1945 wore on, the Army separated Johnson from his flight crew and assigned him to the 1st Tactical Air Communication Squadron, or 1st TAC, a small unit of about 100 men. Having experienced being shot at in airplanes, Johnson and his fellow radiomen now had the opportunity to find out what it was like on the ground, gathering intelligence by direct observation of enemy activity and using ground-air radio to call in close air support strikes by fighter-bombers. 1st TAC would mark friendly positions with colored panels and arrows on the ground, then guide allied aircraft in to hit what was in front of them. Fortunately for Johnson and all concerned, by that time there wasn’t a lot of war left.
Not in China anyway, at least not for him. And not the shooting kind.

No Excuses

Following the surrender of Japan, Johnson flew back out across the hump to India, boarded a ship in Calcutta, returned to the United States, and was discharged from the service in 1946. Having grown up on a Vernon County farm, he made his way back to Hillsboro, found work at a canning factory, and drank beer like there was no tomorrow.
Perhaps because Dorothy, his wife of 54 years, is seated at the table during an interview this fall, Johnson is sparing with the details. Still, nothing that is said sounds remotely like an excuse. He doesn’t blame it on the war; he says he believed he had a drinking problem before he enlisted. He acknowledges being “blacklisted” in Hillsboro after the war: no one who sold alcohol there would sell it to him. “But I had wheels and I could obtain it elsewhere,” he says.
Obtaining it elsewhere enabled him to dig the hole deeper. “There were persons whose lives had been impacted adversely by me,” he says, admitting that he was “living dangerously for myself and as a danger to others.”
And then Fay Johnson gets to what’s been a focal point of his existence for a long time. “There’s no crime in being an alcoholic but it can be a crime to do nothing about it,” he says with a confidence and clarity that could come only from firm faith that a hard question has been decided correctly.
Faith is what ended Johnson’s destructive love affair with alcohol.
He had recognized his problem and grappled with it for some time. He also had enough control of his life that by 1947, he held a responsible job at a company in Eau Claire, inspecting engine parts for proper tolerances. He had friends who cared, and he had his relationship with Dorothy, who would marry him the following year.
Dorothy makes it clear that wouldn’t have happened if Fay hadn’t won his battle, and by his telling, the turning point came in a 1947 revival meeting at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Eau Claire. There was no dramatic moment, no clap of thunder, just the final realization that, in Johnson’s words, “I had been trying to find God at the bottom of a bottle, and He isn’t there.” Instead, he says, people find God “whenever we decide to turn our lives over to Him and to His direction.”
With that, he says, “I found power to do more than just put a cork in a bottle. I found life.”

Back to Studies, Teaching

He also found his way back to college in 1948, and completed seminary studies in 1954. Over the past half-century, Pastor Johnson and his wife have served churches and communities in Kentucky and Illinois, and in Wisconsin at Cuba City, Cumberland, Darlington, Arlington, and La Farge. He supposedly retired in 1981, but since then has been “called out of mothballs” to serve as an interim pastor and in other capacities at Birchwood, Hayward, and Danbury, Wisconsin, and in Rockford, Illinois, and Markville, Minnesota. He’s also been a chaplain at hospitals and assisted living facilities in La Crosse, Rockford and Shell Lake.
But clearly the activity dearest to his heart involves helping others win the war he had to fight after coming home from World War II. He reveres the activities of Alcoholics Anonymous and since 1985, Johnson has been an adjunct professor teaching traffic safety—group dynamics classes—for Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in Rice Lake.
“I’m not egotistical enough to believe I bat a thousand, but I’ve never read the name of anybody who’s been in one of my classes who has a whole string of drunk driving convictions, and I’ve been teaching this for 17 years,” he says.
On the sixth of June 2002, a prominent anniversary date in yet another theater of operations, Johnson was honored for 50 years' service to the people of the United Methodist Church.
He says he "enjoyed" China, even in the middle of a war. “I loved the Chinese people. The kids would come around and I’d have a lot of conversation with them about airplanes...the feeling on their part was that our pockets were filled with gold all the way down to the ground; that was the impression they had of us Americans.” He says he’d like to go back, “but not the way things are now,” under communist rule.
There seems to be a pattern in this "retired" pastor's life. Consciously or not, the man seems to have made a specialty of worthy struggles with no end in sight. Today he helps people who are struggling with themselves. Sixty years ago he helped China in a struggle for freedom, and that one isn't over yet, but who knows? Good people summon the will to do difficult things all the time.
Just ask Fay Johnson. He hasn’t had a drink in 55 years.—Dave Hoopman