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<em>Robert Eli ‘Bob’ Roseta</em> never had to adjust his orientation or his expectations of self after he came to West Point. He already had the mindset, and he kept it all his life. Born to parents of Serbian descent, Bob was proud of his ethnic roots and the Serbian community in Chicago where he grew up. From the earliest, Bob had an appetite for challenge and a streak of perfectionism. His father encouraged and pushed him in sports, Boy Scouts, academics, high school ROTC, church, service to his community and roles of leadership. His mother, juggling a host of responsibilities inside and outside the home with efficiency, was his role model. Bob reached Eagle in scouting, he became the top command cadet in his ROTC, he lettered in football and baseball, and he was a top performer in academics. Those achievements were partly attributable to his upbringing, but Bob added an element of pure originality, a brash sense of humor that endured throughout his life.</p>
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USMA was just a continuation of Bob’s energetic life and his demands of himself. However, reveille did not come easy—until he had his morning coffee, he was just plain ornery, and that irascibility earned him his favorite nickname, ‘Sunshine.’ Bob was a true friend and would give you the shirt off his back, but until he had his morning coffee he was the antithesis of sunshine. Still, he laughed just as hard as we did at his pre-caffeine irascibility.</p>
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Bob delighted in entertaining his classmates any time they might be in Chicago, including the Air Force game plebe year, which included dinner at his house and finding dates for several of us. Bob chose Air Defense Artillery and, after graduation, served first as a HAWK missile platoon leader in Germany and then as a company commander in Vietnam.</p>
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After leaving the Army, Bob took on a project for U.S. Steel, taking him to Taiwan and then into the business world. In 1980, Bob married his beloved Judy. Not a morning person herself, Judy understood Bob’s need for peace and quiet and routine upon rising. She made sure he had his own space and solitude for starting the day, and Sunshine’s morning petulance was easily tamed.</p>
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In the business world, Bob applied his gifts in physics and engineering, as well as in management and leadership. He started in the steel industry and moved to chemicals, then sales management and then technical applications in several defense-related multinational companies. He established the operational procedures for the largest steel-producing blast furnace in the free world and patented a coal water slurry production process. Bob became a product manager for specialized chemical (including explosives) mixing equipment. When his career was cut short by his untimely death, he was Vice President of Sales & Technical Marketing for a New Hampshire firm. Bob was very successful; however, he was often frustrated by the absence of values such as honesty, integrity, hard work and teamwork, which he lived at West Point and in the Army.</p>
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Bob was decisive, hands-on, fiercely self-confident and as tenacious in his business moves as he ever was in sports. When he started expanding U.S. sales for an international company producing propellants and explosives, Bob marched with determination into the literature and technology of producing these tricky chemicals. As Judy relates: “Bob was humming along, ordering bomb-making books as part of his new responsibilities when he was suddenly visited by a grim-faced group from the ATF wanting to know what in the hell he was doing. I think it was the most fun workday he ever had.”</p>
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The history of U.S. manufacturing in the 1980s includes stories of innovation and success, but also of aggressive cost-cutting. This cost-cutting destroyed many lives, and it did not spare Bob and Judy. Soon after their marriage, after Bob was promoted to a new set of responsibilities in engineering, his whole division was eliminated. Bob and Judy had just bought a new house with a 14 percent VA loan, a normal interest rate at the time, and had other purchases typical of newly married couples. Repeatedly advised by his lawyer to declare bankruptcy, Bob balked. As Judy relates, Bob felt that they had incurred the debt, so paying it was the right thing to do. It took several stressful and difficult years, but they did it. Judy and Bob chose this harder right together and they paid off those loans and were the stronger for it.</p>
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When he married, Bob not only took on the role of husband but stepfather as well. He approached both roles with the same dedication he had always displayed. He was a loyal and steadfast family man. Family came first, and important decisions were discussed, with everyone’s input considered.</p>
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Bob was a lifelong Cubs fan and an avid (if frustrated) golfer. Family Scrabble games were played like world-class tournaments. A dedicated husband and father, Bob displayed the same virtues he had brought to West Point.</p>
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He was active and was the very picture of good health when a heart attack claimed him on a golf course in September of 1992. He was a disciplined man of honor. He is survived by his wife, his stepson, his mother and his sister. He left a legacy that makes his roommates, his classmates, his family and his country proud.</p>
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<em>— Phil Clark ’69 and Tom Smith ’69, companymates</em></p>