MooreDonald

Update - 3/15/2009 - In May of 2008, the 40th anniversary of my USMC Infantry Officers Basic School graduation was held in the Main Hall of the just-opened Marine Corps Museum at Quantico, VA (a rare honor due to the number of officers killed from my class, and the fact we had a large number of general grade officers, with a few still serving). As it turns out, a chance comment by one of the attendees resulted in a number of us planning on going back to Vietnam this coming August for a 40th anniversary "in-country". We've mapped out the locations we want to see, even if they are overgrown or re-inhabited, and have laid on a series of guides and FWD transportation in those areas. Most of us served up north in I Corps, so there is not much city-type amenities. This trip has caused me to examine my spreading girth, and try to get in shape for what will be extremely hot walk on the wild side, (but not so hot as last time...). Even last year we each turned to each other and said, in various ways, "I can't believe I lived through it".

As I note the retirements of the majority of the kids I knew at Radford, I am struck by the diversity of locations and avocations these folks have settled into. Most of us had the Vietnam War settle whatever vocation we were going to enter first, and many stayed with the military or its civilian equivalent, law enforcement. Many others went into the business areas (especially IT and communications) with a few sticking with their original desires such as surfing, video or the like.

I consider myself one of the luckiest of the lot, as I lived through some very tight spots, both in the Nam and police work, still have the two greatest daughters on earth, and played far too many games without a helmet. I still live in Shepherdstown (recently voted "Best Small Town in the Middle Atlantic States" again), recently retired from my job at the Job Corps Center, and get invited almost every year to play music in Ireland or Scotland. My oldest daughter owns a large portion of Winston-Salem, and what must be one of the largest water-front homes in the Outer Banks. Her husband owns two large deep-water fishing boats, and recently won over $800,000 dollars in a marlin fishing tournament, at Ocean City, MD. So I spend my summers playing with my grandsons, murdering tuna, and sucking Bloody Marys from glasses floating in the backyard pool in little inner tubes (I just hate the umbrellas, though).

I live some 8 miles from one of the best VA hospitals in the country, and am regularly poked, prodded, and drained, though my surgeon says that if I was a German Shepherd dog, he'd have to put me down. I have told my oldest that if I become too cranky, she is to do a drive-by drop-off at the VA nursing home. When I get worse, she is to check me out under an assumed name, spray-paint me and the wheel-chair flat black, and push me out on the local inter-state highway at night. We�ll let the WV troopers sort it out.

My youngest daughter, (they are twenty years apart - don't blame me; I was surprised it still worked) is a Junior at Florida State, and is planning on an MBA. (I think I know where to send her for a job). Actually, her intermediate goal is to ride in the 2012 Olympics. She is good enough, as she has been riding since she was four (see picture of both daughters in my 2004 album). By then I will probably be a smiling hood ornament on a Mack truck headed north on I-81. And one of the last things going through my mind at that moment (other than a chrome-plated Bulldog) will be of the epically wonderful time I had in Hawaii, a reward for trials to come later, and the beginning of the knowledge that true happiness is what you bring to the table, and not what you take from it.

(House keeping notes: I still have not heard about either of the Vonneguts, Anne '63 or Barbara '64, or Julie Rodriguez. I believe that Skip Curley '63 reverted to his given name Clyde, and is the author of two well-known tune collections in the contra-dance community, called the Portland Collections. His younger brother was our senior class president, Bill Curley.

My younger brother (John D. Moore) also attended Radford in the class of 65, and we were both into the folk music scene at that time.

If you wish to contact me, I can be reached at:
Donald L. Moore
553 South Church St. #18
Shepherdstown, WV 25443
Home phone (304) 876-0215

Donald Leigh Moore Jr.

Don't miss Don's Gallery of Photos.

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