RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

Warmest Thanks to Michael Quine / Las Vegas Review-Journal for this video!

In November 2020, Bill wrote to four members of Cadet Squadron 16, USAFA, Class of 1970, as follows:

Let me introduce four Air Force Academy graduates in the class of 1970 to a long-standing supporter of my work, David Graham, a retired minister, who with his wife Mary, have raised their three children, two of whom, a son and daughter, who graduated from West Point in 2001 and 2004 respectively, and are still on active duty in the Army. Both served in the Middle East and in areas on the far side of the world.

David Graham has established a great website beginning before the year 2000 to help Ronnie and me sell our first and only self-published book, “A Return to Glory”, which led to the television movie, “Code Breakers.”

Over the years he has continued to improve and grow his personal website, and systematically connect it to our personal website.

Further, the holiday period after I lost Ronnie in 2015, David made it a point to drive to Las Vegas to personally, with his daughter, Francesca, visit with me and my and Ronnie’s youngest daughter, Mary Ann Villet, who with me and our personal professional caretaker, Mary F. Smith-Hicks, whom Ronnie and I had hired on December 17, 2014, struggled through Ronnie’s last month with Alzheimer’s.

David put Francesca on an airliner in Las Vegas so she could return to duty, then drove to our house to visit for several hours, a wonderful visit that was a huge lift for both Mary Ann and me.

For David: Ronnie and I served at the AFA from 1967-1970, and when she lost her battle with Alzheimer’s on November 1, 2015, the following weekend Mary Ann and I received a telephone call from 11 members of the AFA class of 1970 in cadet squadron 16, where I had served as their Air Officer Commanding (AOC) for two years. (AOC’s are the equivalent of TAC’s at West Point.) Each of the 11, all attending their 40th reunion dinner, got on the phone one at a time to express their condolences to me for Ronnie’s loss. The following summer the former AFA cadets of CS-16 invited me to fly at their expense from Las Vegas to Colorado in mid-October to view the AFA-Wyoming (away) football game on TV.

They took me on a tour of the cadet dining hall at the cadets’ noon meal, stunned me with an announcement to the entire cadet Wing that they were honoring their AOC of 1970 and why.

After lunch they took me through the 16th Squadron cadet area where I had daily worked that last academic year.

Before taking me to the cadet dining hall for lunch, they took me on a tour of their Southeast Asia Pavilion, which the class of 1970 had spearheaded with leadership and fund raising, and preceded the tour with picture-taking and an introduction to a reporter for an article in an alumni publication. (The SEA pavilion is, in reality, an extremely well done, automated history of AFA graduates in the Vietnam War, which the Academy would not let them do in the academic area, or be replicated there.)

Our fond good wishes,

Bill McWilliams

Colonel, United States Air Force, Retired, West Point Class of 1955, Bill McWilliams is an inspired military historian and a fine friend.  He is also a distinguished combat fighter pilot, a true battle leader.  His literary accomplishments are in areas of American History that illustrate the grandeur of the human spirit and the sacredness of human values.  He is thorough and precise, traits I much admire and that are much sought after by men and women of learning.  Please take a look, read, enjoy and learn.

For a sense of the value of the West Point Honor Code and System to the citizens and future of the United States of America, ruminate upon this letter, dated May 20, 2003, from Bill McWilliams to then-Superintendent of the United States Military Academy Lieutenant General William J. Lennox, Jr.  Background and perspectives, by Bill, on that letter are here.  The letter builds from Bill’s monumental work, A Return to Glory, applying his research and lessons learned there — the 1951 cheating scandal — to a specific matter which arose at West Point in the early 2000s.

That specific matter, which relates decisively to the West Point Honor Code and System, arose again — erupted is how Bill puts it — in 2015 and, this time, prompted Bill to engage with other West Point graduates and some non-graduates — to include the owner of this blog, who is a Friends of West Point — to attempt to settle the matter once again in favor of upholding the West Point Honor Code and System.  In April and May of 2016, current Superintendent of West Point, Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen, Jr., was sent letters and materials briefing treatment of the specific matter in 2003 and Bill sent the Federal Bureau of Investigation this Memorandum dated April 22, 2016.  Bill copied the Memorandum to General Caslen and the Chairman of the Board of the West Point Association of Graduates, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Larry L. Jordan.

His April 2016 Memorandum to the FBI is also here on Bill McWilliams’ personal website.

As so often one can in life, Bill sees that a specific distills the universal.  Because of the West Point Honor Code and System, our people hunger for what West Point is.

Bill’s New Personal Webpage

Bill’s Bio at Authors Guild

USMA Class of 1955 New Website

Bill’s works in military history appear on the Adwaitha Hermitage Leader Reading List.  They are:

A Return To Glory, and here, and here

Sunday In Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute By Minute, and here, and here.  Customer reviews here.

On Hallowed Ground: The Last Battle For Pork Chop Hill, and here, and here

Scrimmage for War: Pearl Harbor, Football and World War II, and here, and here

Code Breakers (Movie), and here

Bill McWilliams Biography

Authors Guild Page

Bill’s New Page at New USMA Class of 1955 Website

This will have deformed elements of two classes at least, 2016 and 2017, making them cynical about discipline and thus about unit cohesion and esprit de corps.

Update 2: From 1971, a lovely picture of Bill and Ronnie, and a narrow, dramatic escape from an on-fire F-4E:

Finally, the F-4E accident board findings and recommendations were as follows:

(1) Primary cause: Materiel factor in that the centerline tank fuel disconnect assembly developed a leak because of improper manufacturing technique and design, allowing fuel to be drawn into the engine bay during takeoff.

(2) Contributing causes:

(a) Maintenance factor in that a pressure or leak check was not performed after centerline tank installation IAW T.O. 1F-4C-2-10.

(b) Supervisory factor in that there is no crew chief checklist available for centerline fuel tank installation and fuel transfer check.

 (3) Possible contributing cause: Maintenance factor in that maintenance personnel mishandled centerline tanks during installation, downloading and storage which could have caused the fuel disconnect assembly to crack in the weldmant area.

Among findings not related to the accident was:

(3) Ground egress training was inadequate in that both crew members deviated from established procedures.  It is felt that ground egress procedures are too lengthy in panic situations.

Since I don’t have a pilot’s handbook, I’m not aware of what the proper egress procedure might have been. Since I did make it out safely, that was good enough for me.

Bill writes:

[In pilot] Bill Hepler’s reply to the 12th TFW Association editor, … he raised a simple related question that surprised me.  He thought the airplane was an F-4D, not an E-model.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the paperwork with me the Flight Safety folks at Kirkland AFB in Albuquerque sent to me when Ronnie and I were still in Las Vegas, or I could recheck the model.  The D model didn’t have an internally mounted gun in the nose of the the airframe.  So he nor I could verify his recollection from the photos.

Bill Hepler did forward three photographs of the airplane he had obtained after the accident, plus one other human interest item a firefighter gave him, a supposedly melted piece of titanium about the size of a coin found on the runway beneath the airplane.  Tells you how hot the fire was. Bill says he carried the melted metal around as a lucky charm for a time.

….  The airplane was disassembled for shipment, and Bill Hepler said he heard later the airplane was sold to the Egyptian Air Force, but he didn’t attempt to verify the sale.

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA