John Guy “Johnny” Coombs arrived at West Point, as did all his classmates, on July 3, 1956, a warm and humid day. It was just the right time and weather to experience the programmed running around for equipment and uniforms and, of course, meeting the first sergeant of 6th New Cadet Company for the first time.
Johnny, along with the class, gained strength and knowledge during morning physical training, wearing no shirt and on the wet, cut grass (ah, they don’t do that anymore!). The marches and squad tactics prepared John for his future branch—Hoo-ah, Infantry!
After the Plebe Hike and rain both outside and inside the tents, the class members marched back to their last stay in North Barracks.
Academics were dumped upon them, with classes six days a week. That alone prepared them for anything and everything. Final exams resulted in the loss of some classmates to civilian life and others to sister companies that had lost many more than Johnny’s company, M-1. Finally, graduation for the Class of 1957 approached. Oops, the class broke ranks on the Plain during the Graduation Parade, and they started doing the uniform drills plebes knew so well. Formally, they were never recognized by that class, as they were assigned to mess hall detail to aid in the preparations for the Graduation Dinner with family and friends—and future brides!
Camp Buckner and the exposure to the Combat Arms branches and field training at platoon level certainly prepared Johnny for his future branch. When that ended, a more leisurely yearling year ensued. Few weekends went by without finding Johnny in the Weapons Room or at a hop with some young lady. He likely never forgot the rescinded report for PDA—with Grant Hall beneath his feet, Johnny did not have far to go to meet his current heartthrob.
The last two years seemed to pass more quickly than the first two. Before they knew it, the members of the Class of 1960 were marching in their own Graduation Parade! Coming to West Point from Chicago with the aim of cultivating a more thoughtful and conservative manner, Johnny left his “Highland Home” aspiring to “progressive and continued development” as a “Southern gentleman” and a professional officer. His parting good words, which were still in use many years later: “Don’t bunch up!”
Johnny was truly an infantryman! While he learned his “scouting” skills in the Weapons Room, he had two perspectives in combat: as an advisor with an ARVN unit and as the S-3 of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, following service with the S-3 staff of the 25th Infantry Division in Korea. All these experiences certainly aided in raising four daughters!
In his class’s 30th Reunion book, Johnny noted: “Thirty years later, I am gratified to report that my life has gone very well. Infantry was my Army career. Following Fort Campbell, I arrived in Vietnam in 1962. It looked like there was hope, provided we did not repeat the mistakes of the French. After Fort Benning and Korea, I returned to shattered Vietnam and the realization that we had made little progress. I was doing the same thing I had done six years earlier, only now the troops were from Chicago and Macon. The Infantry war had turned into a journalism lab for fast-track TV personalities. As Thoreau wrote, ‘The mass of men led lives of quiet desperation.’ It was my desperation era. A sense of guilt at running out on Vietnamese fellow infantrymen still haunts me. The comic relief of raising four daughters in the ’60s and ’70s, however, more than compensated. It is tough knowing that everyone in the family is smarter than you.”
Somewhere along his career he met and married Ruth “Rusty” Watkins, a Southern belle from Mobile, AL. They had four daughters: Kimberly, Jamie, Robin and Jill. Their grandchildren include Wednesday, Casey, Joshua, Emma, Matthew, Morgan and Jackson, as well as great-grandchildren Josie and Theo.
Again, he wrote: “The positive changes in Eastern Europe, as this is written, confirm our belief that, in a small way, our sacrifices did pay off. ROTC duty in St. Joseph, MO proved to be the first time we had lived in the same house as a family for more than two years. Then, two years as a corps planner commuting from Fort Hood, TX to Europe was the finale.
“We bought a small ‘farm’ in Missouri, where we live in a country cottage, six miles out of town off a gravel road. Oak burns in the fireplace in cold weather, and there is a pool when it is warm. Rusty teaches pre-school, and I substitute as a high school mathematics teacher from time to time.”
Rusty, a typical Army wife, endured raising her daughters alone during repeated and extended absences of her Johnny during Vietnam and the Cold War era. She travelled the world with her husband and facilitated diplomatic relations as a military officer’s wife, with her extraordinary cooking skills and engaging charm. After an extended illness, she died in 2005.
As a devoted husband and caring father who enjoyed the outdoors, reading and playing with his dog, he found time, with Rusty assisting (with humor, as the occasion required) for his passion of raising calves and bottle feeding them! The venture into gentlemen farming was rewarding if not fruitful.
At the time of his death, he was survived by his daughters, their husbands, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as by his second wife, Martha Blair Coombs, who died shortly after John. He is buried, in Southern soil, with Rusty, at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, MO.
Johnny—Brother M-Oner: “Don’t bunch up!”
— Jamie Gagliarducci (Daughter) and Deacon