~~Greenbrier Military School Alumni Association (GMSAA Official)
Forwarded by Brock Townsend
Doug (Douglas Miller) asked me (Brock) to post this for him as he was unable to do so. What a story!

I wish I could make it to the reunion ....this might be one of the last ones where those of us of the same age.... I'm 78 now ...will be able to recognize each other...lol.... Unfortunately I am sort of tied down here in Ann arbor Michigan, as I am a live in caregiver for an 86 year old woman. For the past 10 to 12 years I have been a live-in caregiver for several elderly people and one infant baby girl. Before that I was involved a lot with volunteering at animal shelters and owning 14 pets over the years.

I don't know if you remember that Ballantyne was my Company Commander... I always thought he was a reasonable officer, although perhaps a little dramatic in style ..LOL.. And I was saddened to read that he had passed away had a relatively early age...especially when I read that as an adult he had also been involved with animal shelters etc. I now wish that I could have known him as an adult. Personally, I always thought that you (Brock) and Beamon and Aaron Wood were solid officers... demanding when necessary but not overbearing...... My two least favorite officers were Dave Fulton and Eichelberger...lol

Sorry if I'm talking your ear off but this is the first chance I have had in 60 some years now, to speak to anyone that was at Greenbrier when I was there. I have extremely vivid memories of various cadets and also of a number of the faculty officers.

I have often wondered what fellow cadets thought of me and perhaps what some faculty officers thought of me.

I spent my last two and a half years at Greenbrier almost as a mute, as a result of a cataclysmic event that occurred on my way home for Christmas vacation, on a bus to Richmond Virginia, in late December of 1960.... When a man with seriously bad intentions attempted to kidnap me at gunpoint in a snowstorm at 4:00 a.m. outside the Greyhound bus station in Richmond Virginia, as I waited for the city bus to start coming by at about 5:00 a.m. which was going to take me home. ..... It ended in a violent struggle to the death. There were never any legal ramifications as it was very clear to the authorities what had occurred and that I had acted in self-defense.... Although they were very curious as to what had happened to his handgun....

When I came back to Greenbrier 10 days later, in January, I was literally carrying his now partially loaded 38 caliber revolver which I kept with me for the next 20 years including my subsequent time there at Greenbrier.

Ballantyne was the only person to ever realize this, as he found it during an inspection in my room. To his credit , after I took it back from him and put it back in its hidey hole... with a sort of respectful but very clear stare down on my part... he never brought it up to me and apparently never mentioned it to anybody in the administration.
I always felt that I was a bit of a loner at Greenbrier....because of that event ....

It literally took me decades to get over the unrecognized psychological trauma of that night.

The irony of it all .....and speaking to the randomness of life.... was that after my first year at Greenbrier when I walked the beat a little bit, I came back in the fall for my second year in 1960, and was determined to get no demerits.... I succeeded.... And was able to use that record to get out early for that Christmas vacation, fully intending to surprise my parents by getting home early and showing them what a good boy I had been, only to realize that the bus got in at 4:00 a.m. in the morning in the middle of a snowstorm in Richmond Virginia and left me standing outside on main Street shivering with my grey suitcase .... And realizing at that moment that I could not wake my parents up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning so I just had to wait for the city bus to start its rounds....and that's when he offered me a ride.

I will spare you the gory details of the next 30 minutes.... Although it is a hell of a story ....Suffice it to say I would not submit to his sexual intentions... and in a struggle reminiscent of a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction.... I was able to eventually exit the car.... bloodied but unbowed.... Then I had to go back to Greenbrier in January and pretend as if nothing had happened.

Two and a half years later I graduated and went off to Wooster College in Wooster Ohio.

I guess I hold one likely to be unbroken record at Greenbrier..... As the only sophomore cadet to have killed a man and returned to school.... If I may be permitted a moment of dark humor.

A further irony of this is that there are over a dozen adult friends of mine that have known the story for years.... but you are the first person from Greenbrier that I have ever had the chance to tell it to...
~~Doug