Phil immediately felt at home as he drove past the guard gate at Fort Myer. The storied post abutted Arlington National Cemetery. He took a turn on Lee Avenue, a well-kept, leafy residential area that could have been found in almost any town in America.[1]

Most of the buildings at the north end of Fort Myer had been built between 1895 and 1908.

He passed Quarters One, home to the Army Chief of Staff since 1908 and some of the nation’s most famous generals, including Douglas MacArthur and George C. Marshall. Its current resident was General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Phil smiled when he saw Mamie Eisenhower on the front porch, reading a book in a rocker. She waved to him. He sheepishly waved back.

As he continued along the tree-lined avenue past Victorian-style homes with inviting verandas and front yards filled with playful children, he found the scene comforting since it reminded him of the grander residential streets in his hometown of Memphis.

Phil drove by the extensive Fort Myer parade grounds, where aviator Orville Wright, during a military test flight in September 1908, set a world record for the longest time aloft in the air—a flight lasting one hour and two minutes.

Traveling at a leisurely speed of thirty-eight miles per hour, Wright circled the parade grounds seventy-one times above hundreds of awestruck spectators.

Coming upon the headquarters building, a striking Georgian red-brick structure, Phil noted the sharply dressed Army men entering and leaving the HQ, all spit and polish.

Then his heart raced a bit faster when he came upon rows of magnificent stables and a riding hall. He recalled how Fort Myer’s equestrian training facility was the primary training ground for Olympic equestrian entrants.[2]

(TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW)

~~~~~

[1] Larimore, At First Light, 305.

[2] Ibid, 305-306.

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December 24, 1945M