Richard Arthur ‘Dick’ Daniel was born at Fort Benning, GA to Ruth (Thurman) Daniel and Colonel Samuel Arthur Daniel ’32. His development years were spent as a typical Army brat at some of the usual sites for an Army officer, and some not so typical. Dick insisted, and I believe him, that his father never tried to get him to follow in his footsteps. I do know that Dick held his father in highest esteem, and it is not surprising that Dick also retired as an Ordnance officer. After a short stint at a prep school, he spent five years as a cadet, having started with the Class of ’59.
Dick and I were roommates for all four years, and our dissimilar talents created the original “Odd Couple.” I was the greenest of rookies in all things military, while Dick was a “brat” who had already completed one plebe year. On the other side of the coin, I could help him out in academics (it helped me, too). By consolidating resources we “licked the platter clean.”
As a cadet, Dick was a man of many diverse talents, including the finest left-handed penmanship you have ever seen. He was a fine tenor soloist in the Glee Club and a stalwart member of a Navy-beating golf team. There was one year, back when the NCAAs were played in match play rather than stroke play, that he came back and mentioned beating “a fat kid from Ohio.” As it happened, the “fat kid” was Jack Nicklaus. His finest musical talent, which also served as a wonderful escape from the rigors of the institution, was his mastery of the cadet chapel organ. There was a connection between the chapel organist John Davis and the Daniel family. As a result, Dick, with his many years of classical piano training, was granted frequent, and greatly appreciated, access to the massive organ with more than 23,500 pipes. He played mostly on weekends, and the many tourists that wandered through the chapel were treated to his adventures on those four large keyboards and innumerable pedals.
After graduation, Dick spent a few years with the tube artillery before transferring to the Ordnance Corps and spending a big chunk of his career in the development of the M1A2 tank and its supporting test equipment. Early in his career the Daniels became the parents of daughters: Debbie in ’62 and Kathy in ’64. Dick went to Vietnam in ’65 and again in ’70, earning a pair of Bronze Stars and Vietnamese Crosses, a Combat Infantry Badge and exposing him to large doses of Agent Orange, which contributed eventually to his non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He and Jeanette particularly enjoyed the last half of his military career. They spent several years in Jordan, and the girls enjoyed the time in the American school in Amman. They later took advantage of their location in Germany to give their girls the opportunity to travel in Europe. When he returned from Europe, he was assigned to The Tank and Armaments Command at the Detroit Arsenal, where he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Dick retired in ’83 and took his tank expertise to General Dynamics for the next decade. He and Jeanette never got far from Michigan. When he left General Dynamics, it was an easy transition to retired life in Empire, MI. It’s a small town of 500 people on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, surrounded (and thus unable to expand) by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. There, Dick enjoyed an active Lions Club, a golf course (of course) and the United Methodist church.
Dick was “Mr. Lion” in his neck of the woods, serving as the District Governor from 2003 to 2004. In Empire’s Lions Club he served as president, secretary and treasurer. He was an invaluable local organizer for Lions’ charities and fundraisers, including the establishment of an annual chicken barbecue that was a strong source of revenue for the club. When a new Lions Club was getting started in that part of Michigan, Dick became the “Guiding Lion” to help it get off the ground.
Dick’s wonderful tenor voice never left him, and he was a frequent soloist at his church. Dick sang at my wedding, and his most unusual claim to fame is that he also sang at his own memorial service. Jeanette has a CD derived from one of those old vinyl 33 records of the Cadet Glee Club, and when Dick sang “Oh, Lord Most Holy” at his memorial in the little Methodist church, there was not a dry eye to be found. As a husband, father, grandfather, citizen and alumnus, Dick could always be counted on to do more than his share. Well done, Dick; Be Thou at Peace.
— Frank Cloutier, roommate and friend, and Jeanette Daniel