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CHAPTER VIII

Judge Advocate General’s School

THE JUDGE ADVOCATE General’s School shared not only some physical facilities with the University of Virginia Law School but also some academic and teaching resources. There was an amusing contradiction in my status as we moved to Charlottesville. On the one hand, as a part of the faculty at the JAG School, I was accorded many of the privileges of any other faculty member at the University of Virginia, including access to the fine university hospital where our first child was born. (I’ll have more to say on this later.) On the other hand, under the mysterious Army regulations, the JAG School was considered a “hardship post” because it had no Army facilities like a post exchange or a commissary. Some hardship post! A fine university located in one of the most beautiful spots in all of America. What made this all the more ironic is that, because it was a “hardship post,” I received an extra $180 a month to help me deal with all of these hardships! Marilyn and I have often laughed that we probably had more free cash in those days than at any other time before or since.

My first assignment at the JAG School was unusual. Although I would be attending the school itself, inasmuch as I had already been in the service for well over a year and had been through basic training and Counter Intelligence training, it was decided that I would “double” as a student and a faculty member. My main responsibility as a “faculty member” was to help “militarize” the other fellows coming into the Army at the school. That is to say, virtually all of the students coming into the school were coming directly from civilian life and had absolutely no military training. My job was to help close the gap. Sometimes this was amusing and sometimes a little scary. For example, it was funny to see a brand-new, young officer knot his tie in a Windsor knot that looked about a foot wide instead of the narrow, clean, and neat four-in-hand knot that was necessary in the Army. An example of the “scary” part was when we would do exercises in the field involving weapons. Some of the new officers had never held a gun and sometimes waved their carbines around in a manner that caused the rest of us to hit the ground fast!

Once again, I was in an environment where I met a lot of very interesting people and made some good friends. One fellow that I remember very well was Derek Bok. Derek went on to teach law at Harvard, became the Dean of the Harvard Law School, and then the President of Harvard University for twenty years. While it was obvious even then that he was a brilliant young man destined for great things, what I remember best is that he was a dynamite softball pitcher who made the JAG Law School team a major force on the local softball scene.

After finishing the JAG School I was kept in Charlottesville because I only had a little more than a year left in my Army commitment, and it obviously made no sense for me to be sent into the field. While I would have enjoyed actually practicing military law, it was hard to argue with the wonderful opportunity to live in Charlottesville for an extended period.

My work at the JAG School was fairly routine and lackluster, but one of the most important things in my life—and quite obviously Marilyn’s—was the birth of our first child, Melissa, at the University of Virginia Hospital on November 21, 1957. This was a blessed event in every way, but there was one especially amusing aspect. As I mentioned, we had full access to and the privileges of the University of Virginia Hospital where Marilyn and Melissa were wonderfully cared for. The funny part is that we had the benefits of this great hospital at an Army “rate” of twenty-five dollars. When we left the hospital I kept the receipt and, at Melissa’s wedding rehearsal dinner many years later, I gave the receipt to her husband-to-be and said he should use it if she ever began to brag about how valuable she was!

Thus began our newest adventure—being parents!