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“Request permission to go ashore, sir!” Captain John H. Lea, III ’80, his daughter, Allison, and his wife, Kate, are piped ashore while a ship’s bell
tolls four times in honor of his retirement.
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LYCOMING COLLEGE 2014 FALL MAGAZINE
F E AT U R E S
banners festooned window sills and
town squares. U.S. Air Force Hercules
aircraft repeatedly swooped in at treetop
level, adding a thrilling touch of modern
American air power to the festivities. It
was a military historian’s delight.
The high point of the trip was D-Day
itself. We had to roll out early before the
highway connecting Caen and Bayeux
was shut down, and we found ourselves
on the sacred sands of Omaha Beach
by the dawn’s early light. There were
veterans in wheelchairs and re-enactors
in period uniforms everywhere. Jeeps
and halftracks were running up and
down the beach and warships from
various Allied nations dotted the
horizon.
Jack Lea’s retirement ceremony was
profoundly moving. It was held on the
beach near the Les Moulins draw at St.
Laurent-sur-Mer, in front of a massive
sculpture entitled “Les Braves,” on
the very spot where so many young
Americans fought and died and began
the liberation of Europe seven decades
ago. Colonel Ellicott officiated, Dr.
Larson read a special prayer written
for the occasion by former Dean of
the College Dr. John F. Piper, Jr.,
Pennsylvania Senator Dave Argall
’80 gave the benediction, and Trustee
Bill Evans ’72, a retired Colonel in the
Public Health Service, and I served as
the color guard, holding American and
U.S. Navy flags steady against a stiff
breeze blowing in from the Channel. In
accordance with Navy tradition, Jack
read his own retirement order at the end
of the ceremony, then turned to Colonel
Ellicott, saluted, and said “request
permission to go ashore, sir.” Those
words took on bone-chilling significance
on that sacrificial site.
Jack remained in uniform for the rest
of the day and everywhere we went total
strangers came up to him and thanked
him for his service. He participated
in the lowering of the American flag
ceremony at the Normandy American
Cemetery that evening and posed for
pictures with adoring French children
afterwards. It was truly a day to
remember.
We ended our excellent battlefield
adventure in Paris with visits to the Eiffel
Tower, the French Army Museum and
Napoleon’s tomb, and a dinner cruise
on the Seine. On our last night together,
Jack did what chaplains do so well. We
were sitting in a large circle in our hotel’s
lounge, and he asked each member of
the group to describe what the trip had
meant to them. It was a cathartic moment.
Our conversations continued the next
morning and a consensus emerged. The
trip underscored that there is something
unique and very special about a Lycoming
College education, an education that does
not stop at graduation. The friendships
Lycoming students forge with their
professors last a lifetime. You rarely see
that at universities where hundreds of
students are packed into lecture halls.
Professors such as Dr. Larson and the
kind of alumni I met on this trip make it
happen, but none of it would be possible
were it not for the efforts of the trustees
and the college leadership to create an
educational environment in which such
relationships can develop and flourish.