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By Root 3967 0

among his papers that seemed to sum up as eloquently as anyone could what his service and the service of so many others had meant to the country. The letter was signed by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who later became our country’s first secretary of defense. I assume it was sent to wartime personnel when they left the Navy for civilian life. Forrestal wrote that he had timed the letter to arrive after Dad was formally discharged from service “because, without formality but as clearly as I know how to say it, I want the Navy’s pride in you, which it is my privilege to express, to reach into your civil life and remain with you always.”12 Decades later, when I served as one of Forrestal’s successors as secretary of defense, I framed that letter, hung it in my office, and thought of it often when other young men and women were sent off to war in distant lands.

With my father officially discharged, we drove back to Illinois. Dad went right back to work at the same real estate firm he had started with at age twelve. He spent his days as a residential real estate salesman and then made extra money by buying houses in areas with good school districts, fixing them up, and then selling them for a profit. As a result, we lived in six or seven different houses over the next few years, including three houses on the same street in Winnetka. Because we were constantly refurbishing our homes, many nights when I came home from school I would help steam, soak, and scrape off the old wallpaper and put up new wallpaper in its place. After our work was done, Dad would put the house on the market to sell it, and he’d start over again in a new place.

I liked high school and studied hard. I played as many sports as I could. In my freshman year I entered the intramural wrestling tournament, and made it to the finals. By my senior year, I was co-captain of the varsity wrestling team with my friend Lenny Vyskocil, and our team won the Illinois state title for the first time in our school’s history.

Over the years people have asked me about my many years as a wrestler, and even tried to make it a metaphor for my approach to life. The fact is that wrestling happened to be a sport I was suited for. As with most activities, I found that the harder I worked at wrestling, the better I got, and I began to understand the direct link between effort and results.

In high school, I met Marion Joyce Pierson. Our friendship developed in a larger group of our friends, who would gather at the local diner. Hamburgers, fries, milk shakes, and the jukebox seemed a way of life on Friday and Saturday nights. Joyce and I were both elected class officers in our junior year. Through that year, I became increasingly aware of her spirited but unassuming style. Her eyes had a certain twinkle, as if they were concealing a wise insight or a humorous thought. We started dating when we were seniors, and it was an on-again, off-again relationship for most of the year.

As I considered college, I received proposals for wrestling scholarships from a number of the Big Ten universities, which I weighed carefully. But the dean at my high school, Fred Kahler, suggested that I go to Princeton. He had gone there, and Princeton, in his mind as a proud alumnus, was the best place for me. Until that moment, I had thought of the Ivy League as a place for the wealthy or connected, and I didn’t know which of those categories I fit into less.

When I learned that Princeton did not give athletic scholarships, I told the Dean I couldn’t afford to go there. Undeterred, he told me to fill out the application forms and take whatever tests were needed, and he promised to speak to the scholarship committee to get me aid based on need. I almost certainly would not have attended Princeton without his dogged encouragement.

The class of 1954 was not only all male, but all white. Well over half of our classmates in college had gone to prep school and had already taken a number of the required first-year courses. Those of us who came from public schools had a tougher road. Nearly every day