Appreciation from Fellow Veteran

As a 1956 grad whose first career was in the U.S. Air Force, I was pleased to read Lt. Col. Gail Fisher ’84’s explanation of why she joined the Army. It was certainly a very different set of circumstances from those I experienced yet the outcomes seem to me to be very similar.  

Like Gail, my Grinnell education firmly convinced me that peace was a major human goal. However, this was only a few short years after World War II and Korea and our view of keeping the peace in the midst of a Cold War was very different.

In fact, we males still had a “military obligation,” and many of my classmates were drafted to fulfill that obligation. I and several others received our commissions as second lieutenants in the Air Force as a result of our time in AFROTC at Grinnell.  

Like Lt. Col. Fisher, I have found that all who wore the uniform hate war and were in the profession to keep it from happening. And, this was never more the case than when we sat across the table from a Congressional committee that didn’t have the same ideas we had about how to get the job done.  

I join Lt. Col. Fisher in her pride at being an American warrior and, with many others, thank her for her service.

Author Info: 
Don Cassiday ’56
Aurora, IL
United States
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