Some very sad news:

Andrew J. Goodpaster, 90, Soldier and Scholar, Dies
The New York Times
May 17, 2005

Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, a soldier and scholar who fought in World War II, commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and came out of retirement to lead the United States Military Academy in a time of crisis, died on Monday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here. He was 90 and a resident of Washington.

The cause was prostate cancer, said his granddaughter Sarah Nesnow.

General Goodpaster was NATO commander from 1969 to 1974, after serving as deputy commander of American forces in Vietnam. Before beginning his Vietnam service in 1968, he was the third-ranking member of the United States delegation to the Paris negotiations with North Vietnam.

He retired as a four-star general after his NATO command but came out of retirement in 1977 to become superintendent of West Point and deal with the aftermath of a scandal involving cheating. General Goodpaster voluntarily gave up a star, assuming the rank of lieutenant general as superintendent. He retired again in 1981.

Andrew Jackson Goodpaster was born on Feb. 12, 1915, in Granite City, Ill. He attended McKendree College in Lebanon, Ill., for two years before transferring to West Point, where he graduated second in his class in 1939. That year, he married Dorothy Anderson.

In World War II he was twice wounded while leading a combat engineer battalion in North Africa and Italy. In addition to two Purple Hearts, he was awarded the Army's second-highest decoration for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, for making a reconnaissance under heavy fire through a minefield, and a Silver Star.

Returning to the United States after being wounded for the second time, he served for three years on the general staff of the War Department. Early in that assignment, he helped plan for an invasion of Japan that became unnecessary after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the late 1940's, he studied at Princeton University, earning a master's in engineering and a doctorate in international relations. In the early 1950's he was attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, then served with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

From 1954 to 1961, he was an adviser to President Eisenhower. He then served as assistant commander of the Third Infantry Division and, later, as commander of the Eighth Infantry Division. He held several Pentagon posts and served as commandant of the National War College before becoming deputy commander of American forces in Vietnam.

When he came out of retirement to become West Point's superintendent, the academy was reeling from a cheating scandal that involved 151 cadets. In his four-year tenure there, the general sought to substitute ''positive leadership'' for hazing and personal abuse, to bolster the academy's courses in humanities and public policy, and to ease the admission of women to the academy.

General Goodpaster was a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Eisenhower Institute, which studies foreign and domestic policy issues.

He was a member of the American Security Council and a founder of the Committee on the Present Danger, groups whose central thesis was that the Soviet Union's military threat was underestimated and that the United States needed a correspondingly strong defense.

A West Point classmate, Lt. Gen. Edward L. Rowny, retired, said General Goodpaster was working on his memoirs until a week ago.

He is survived by his wife; two daughters, Susan Sullivan of Alexandria, Va., and Anne Batte of Salisbury, N.C.; and seven grandchildren.

This amazing man spoke at my conference and was actually cracking jokes, despite having gone through at least two rounds of radiation therapy relatively recently.

And the things that he had done and seen! A certainly full life!

Rest in peace, sir!