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Joe graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1957, and was a Major when he was killed in an aircraft accident in Vietnam on 19 September 1968.
His name is on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.
I believe he attended the Georgia Military Academy in College Park during the 1952-53 academic year and entered USMA later in 1953.
He was a fine Georgia man who I admired. I hope that we will honor his memory at the All-Years Reunion.
Thurlow W.H. Caffey
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Noel Starr Smith (1955)
Joe's dad was a Southern Railway switch engine foreman I met on the job in 1955. He was so proud of Joe, who was at West Point at the time. This was before that Vietnam Nam thing began. Too bad about the tragedy in their future.
Another schoolmate who excelled in ROTC along with Joe was Richard Garner. I do not find Richard among graduates, but he too made the military his career, only passing away recently having attained the Army rank of lieutenant colonel.
They, along with Jimmy Bennett (who died piloting a Navy Neptune bomber), Larry Walker (Army lieutenant colonel) Pre Ball (who became major general in the Air Force) and others I cannot recall were the ones who went from our midst to protect us.
My enduring thanks to them.