I (Harry J. Lemley, Jr.) was born on 1 February 1914 in Hope, Arkansas, son of the late United States District Judge Harry J. Lemley and Caroline McRae Lemley. My childhood consisted largely of an accelerated educational development, considerable poor health and normal to slow physical development.

I must confess to a considerable lack of desire to attend the Academy regardless of all the heroes in the movies. I admired and respected them, but my own tastes ran to raccoon coats and fraternities rather than the Long Grey Line. Nonetheless, upon graduation from high school, I accepted my father’s advice that I go to West Point. He had always wanted to go himself but had not been allowed, being of very much unreconstructed Virginia ancestry.

Having secured a political appointment, I was sent to Marion Military Academy, Marion, Alabama for West Point prep, which I considered best, and on to Beast Barracks. West Point devastated me mentally and physically, as I was grossly immature in every respect. I nevertheless toughed it out, as I have a great many other hurdles over the years.

I shan’t detail my 36 year military career of which I am quite proud. It is available in open sources to anyone interested. Suffice it is to say I graduated as one of Simon Bolivar’s first class bucks, unhumiliated and, I suppose, unreconstructed. I place my Academy career in the same category as another significant event of my life, The Passion Play. I’m glad I went but would never want to repeat the experience. What I don’t regret is coming down the pike with as fine a bunch of people as ever walked the earth.

[Harry J. Lemley, Jr. is survived by a brother, Kenneth McRae Lemley, USMA Class of 1940; a son, Harry Jacob Lemley, III; a daughter, Elizabeth Kendall Lemley; a daughter, Margaret Lemley Broaddus; and two grandsons, John Alfred Broaddus, III and Christopher McRae Broaddus.]

Harry Jacob Lemley, Jr. with help from Elizabeth