Sergeant Major (Ret.) Howard Metcalf was the Regimental Sergeant Major from 1998 to 2002.
In Memoriam
Remembering Recently Departed Members of the Judge Advocate General Corps in 2019
By Fred L. Borch III
The following members of our Regiment, in alphabetical order, passed away in 2019.
Wilsie Horton Adams Jr. (1938–2019)
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 6 December 1938, Adams went to Loyola Blakefield High School, Towson, Maryland, from which he graduated in 1956. He then entered the U.S. Military Academy (USMA). Commissioned into the infantry in 1960, Adams served in the 82nd Airborne Division with the First Battle Group, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment from 1961 to 1963 before entering law school on the Excess Leave Program.
After obtaining his juris doctor (J.D.) from Georgetown University in 1966, Adams spent a year at the Office of The Judge Advocate General (OTJAG) before moving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he attended the 16th Advanced Course and taught two years in the Procurement Law Division of The Judge Advocate General’s School (TJAGSA). In May 1970, then-Major (MAJ) Adams deployed to Saigon, Vietnam, where he served a tour of duty at the Army Procurement Agency. He resigned his Regular Army commission in 1971 and transferred to the Army Reserve, from which he retired as a lieutenant colonel (LTC). He was a partner in several Washington, D.C., law firms before his death. Lieutenant Colonel Adams is survived by his wife, Rosemary, and two daughters and four grandchildren.
Kenneth J. Allen (1949–2019)
Born in Patterson, New Jersey, on 6 November 1949, Allen enlisted in the Army in 1970 as a Private (E-2) on the Delayed Entry Program. He left active duty as a sergeant to attend law school at the University of Louisville, from which he graduated in 1976.
Allen then applied for a commission as a judge advocate (JA); and, after being accepted and completing the 82d Judge Advocate Basic Course, then-CPT Allen served as a defense counsel at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. From 1980 to 1982, he was the Chief Commissioner, Army Court of Military Review (today’s Army Court of Criminal Appeals). He then attended the 31st Graduate Course, from which he graduated in 1983.
After Allen left active duty the following year, he worked as a Department of the Army civilian attorney in three locations: Primasens and Zweibrucken, Germany, from 1984 to 1987; Fort Ritchie, Maryland, from 1987 to 1997; and Fort Detrick, Maryland, from 1997 to 2007, when he retired. Allen also had a career as a JA in the Army Reserve, and served as the Command Judge Advocate (CJA), 412th Engineer Command (Forward), and Seckenheim, Germany, and CJA, 315th Engineer Group, Cumberland, Pennsylvania.
Allen was the author of a number of professional publications, including Thomson Reuters’s 900-page The Contract Interpretation Handbook: A Manual for Avoiding and Resolving Government Contract Disputes, and its 1,600-page Federal Grant Practice. He also was an adjunct member of the Naval Postgraduate School, where he taught on topics such as ethics in public contracting.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Allen died on 18 May 2019. He was sixty-nine years old and is survived by his wife, Terry.
Gary Layton Anderson (1943–2019)
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Anderson died on 17 September 2019. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 12 February 1943, Anderson earned his undergraduate degree from Westminster College and his law degree from the University of Texas. He then served as a JA for twenty years and, before being appointed as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, he worked in the Civil Division in San Antonio until retiring in early 2018. Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Anderson was interred in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Leonard Neil “Leo” Atkinson Jr. (1959–2019)
Sergeant First Class (Ret.) Atkinson died on 11 March 2019. Born in Sweet Grass, Montana, on 24 August 1959, Atkinson enlisted in the Army when he was seventeen years old. He was a paralegal specialist military occupational specialty (MOS) 71D (today’s MOS 27D) and served in Southwest Asia during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. After retiring as a sergeant first class with twenty-two years of active duty, Atkinson worked as a civilian employee at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Sergeant First Class (retired) Atkinson’s wife predeceased him. Atkinson is survived by two sons, a daughter, and a grandson. He was interred at the Fort Jackson Military Cemetery.
Brian Banks (1955–2019)
Major (Ret.) Banks died on 13 September 2019. He had retired from the Corps in 2004 and was sixty-four years old at the time of his death.
Born on 5 June 1955, Banks enlisted in the Army in 1975 and completed Infantry Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He then served as an infantryman (MOS 11C) in the 2nd Infantry, 4th Infantry, and 10th Mountain Divisions before attending college at University of Colorado and earning dual-major bachelor degrees in Political Science and History in 1983.
He subsequently earned his J.D. from Washburn University School of Law. After directly commissioning in the Corps in 1987, Brian completed the 114th Judge Advocate Basic Course. He then served in a number of locations and assignments, including: Group Judge Advocate, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne); Deputy Staff Judge Advocate, 5th US Army; Senior Defense Counsel, 3rd Infantry Division; CJA, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School; and SJA, Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, Kharshi-Kanabad, Uzbekistan, and Bagram, Afghanistan.
In 2005, Banks returned to work for the Army as a civilian administrative law attorney at 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Major (Ret.) Banks is survived by his wife, two daughters, and one son.
Charles Raphael Cherry (1991–2019)
Sergeant (SGT) Cherry died on 4 September 2019. He was twenty-eight years old. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 25 June 1991, he attended Long Beach Community College before enlisting in the Army Reserve. After successful completion of Advanced Individual Training as a paralegal specialist MOS 27D in 2013, SGT Cherry was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 425th Civil Affairs Battalion in Encino, California. In 2016, Cherry was assigned to the 79th Theater Sustainment Command in Los Alamitos, California. While in this assignment, he demonstrated a superior competitive spirit by participating in multiple “Best Warrior Competitions.” He also, successfully, completed airborne training and earned the Basic Parachute Badge in 2017.
In October 2018, SGT Cherry joined the Active Guard Reserve (AGR) program and was assigned to the United States Army Reserve Legal Command, 2nd Legal Operations Detachment (LOD). Although SGT Cherry’s time spent with the Legal Command was brief, he left a lasting impression on his fellow Soldiers and will be truly missed by his colleagues, leaders, and friends. Sergeant Cherry is survived by his parents.
Joseph Powell Creekmore (1938-2019)
Colonel (COL) (Ret.) Creekmore died on 28 March 2019. He was eighty years old.
Born in Whiteville, North Carolina, on 24 May 1938, Creekmore graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1960 and finished his law degree there two years later. After passing the North Carolina bar examination in 1962, then-First Lieutenant Creekmore joined the Corps. Between 1962 and 1982, when he retired as a colonel, Creekmore served in Vietnam, Okinawa, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Italy, and Germany.
After leaving active duty, Creekmore was the Clerk of Court, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina until he retired a second time in 2002. Colonel (Ret.) Creekmore was predeceased by his wife and survived by two children, three grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
Howard C. “Howie” Eggers (1942–2019)
Colonel (Ret.) Eggers died on 25 March 2019 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Born in San Francisco, California, on 30 August 1942, he was the eldest of four children and also grew up in San Francisco. After graduating from the University of San Francisco in 1967, he entered the Corps.
When he retired from active duty in 1994, COL Eggers served in a variety of assignments. He was the SJA, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force in the early 1980s and later served in the Army Trial Judiciary. He also had a tour of duty at the Office of Congressional Legislative Liaison. After retiring from active duty, COL Eggers joined the faculty of the U.S. Air Force Academy Law Department, where he worked as a civilian law professor for nineteen years.
Colonel (Ret.) Eggers was predeceased by his wife. He is survived by one daughter, one son, and three grandchildren.
Francis X. “Frank” Gindhart (1940–2019)
Colonel (Ret.) Gindhart died on 18 February 18, 2019. He was seventy-eight years old. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 27 August 1940, Gindhart attended La Salle University before earning his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. He then joined the Corps, and served a tour of duty as an Army lawyer in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After leaving active duty, Gindhart transitioned to the Army Reserve and he retired as a colonel after thirty years of combined active and Reserve service.
Frank also served in a number of important judicial administrative positions, including: Reporter of Decisions and Clerk of Court of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces; Chief Deputy Clerk, U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Clerk of Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C.
After retiring in 2000, COL Gindhart and his wife moved to South Carolina. He is survived by his wife, one son, one daughter, and three grandchildren. Colonel Gindhart is to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
William Henry “Bill” Lantz Jr. (1942–2019)
Colonel (Ret.) Lantz died on 22 October 2019. He was seventy-six years old. Born on 21 November 1942, Lantz graduated from Villanova University and commissioned into the infantry through the ROTC program. He then served in Vietnam and at Fort Ord before returning to Villanova in 1971 to earn his law degree. Then-CPT Lantz returned to active duty as a JA and served in a variety of assignments and locations, including 2d Infantry Division, Korea, where he was a trial and defense counsel. He also was the SJA in Berlin when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1991.
After retiring from active duty as a colonel, Lantz began a second career with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, where he worked on national security issues. Colonel (Ret.) Lantz is survived by his wife, daughter, and two sons.
Robert Michael “Mike” Lewis (1952–2019)
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Lewis died on 14 August 2019. He was sixty-seven years old. Born in Auburn, New York, on 23 March 1952, Lewis joined the Army in 1973 after graduating from the University of Delaware. Initially, he served as a military intelligence officer, but left active duty to attend law school at Syracuse University. He then returned to active duty with the Corps in 1981.
Lewis served in many assignments, including Fort Eustis, Virginia, Fort Stewart, Georgia, and Korea. A graduate of the 37th Graduate Class, Lewis served as the OTJAG Assistant Executive Officer before attending George Washington University, where he earned an LL.M. in environmental law. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis then served as the Environmental Law Specialist at U.S. Forces Command before being assigned as the Chief, Litigation Branch, Environmental Law Division (ELD), U.S. Army Legal Service Agency. He retired from active duty in 1998. Lewis remained at ELD as a civilian attorney until he retired in 2014. Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Lewis is survived by his wife.
Howard Metcalf (1948–2019)
Sergeant Major (Ret.) Metcalf, the 8th Regimental Sergeant Major of the Corps, died on 25 November 2019. He was seventy-two years old.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on New Year’s Day 1947, Metcalf graduated from Sevier High School, Ferriday, Louisiana, in 1969. He then enlisted in the Army and completed Basic Training and Infantry Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Howard then served as an infantryman in Vietnam from January 1970 to February 1971 with both the 90th Replacement Battalion and the 321st Transportation Company.
Metcalf left active duty and resumed his life as a civilian. But, he missed soldiering, and enlisted again in 1977 as a legal specialist MOS 71D. His initial assignment after graduation from AIT at Fort Ben Harrison, Indiana, was as a battalion legal noncommissioned officer (NCO) with the 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery, Korea. His follow-on assignments included: Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, 21st Support Command, Kaiserslautern, Germany; Instructor Developer with Company C, 1st Battalion, Troop Brigade, Fort Ben Harrison, Indiana; Senior Legal NCO, Combined Field Army, Korea; and MOS 71D Branch Manager, Military Personnel Center, Falls Church, Virginia.
In November 1997, Metcalf was selected as the 8th Sergeant Major of the Corps, and he assumed that position on 17 February 1998. Metcalf served with honor and distinction under both Major Generals Walter B. Huffman and Thomas J. Romig. He retired as our Corps’s Sergeant Major on 30 August 2002.
Sergeant Major (Ret.) Metcalf is survived by his wife and their two sons. He was interred on 1 December 2019, in the Fort Jackson National Cemetery, Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Joseph Andrew Rehyansky Jr. (1946–2019)
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Rehyansky was born in Irvington, New Jersey, on 6 August 1946. He died on 21 June 2019 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was seventy-two years old.
Rehyansky graduated from Parsons College in 1968, served a tour of duty in Vietnam, and then returned to earn his law degree from the Cumberland (Alabama) School of Law in 1972. He then directly commissioned into the Corps and, after retiring from active duty in 1990, moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he served as a prosecutor in Bradley and Hamilton counties until retiring again in 2001.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Rehyansky is survived by his wife, one son, one daughter, and four grandchildren.
Daniel Wayne Shimek (1947–2019)
Colonel (Ret.) Shimek was born in Wisconsin and died on 5 November 2019 in Roswell, Georgia. He was eighty-two years old. Shimek graduated from the USMA in 1960. After serving a tour of duty as an engineer, Shimek attended law school on the Excess Leave Program and, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1965, then-CPT Shimek transferred to the Corps.
He then served at XVIII Airborne Corps and 8th Infantry Division. After a tour in Vietnam and the Advanced Course at TJAGSA, Shimek served as an Associate Professor in the Law Department at West Point. He would later also serve as the SJA at USMA from 1975 to 1976—during the infamous USMA Electrical Engineer cheating scandal. Shimek finished his JA career as the SJA, 4th Army. He retired in 1987 and worked as the civilian Chief of Legal Assistance at West Point. Colonel (Ret.) Shimek is survived by his wife.
Walter James Wadlington III (1931–2019)
Captain Wadlington was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on 17 January 1931. Wadlington died on 27 May 2019 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
After attending Duke University and Tulane Law School, and serving one tour of duty in the Corps, Wadlington discovered that his passion was teaching. He subsequently taught at Tulane for two years before joining the law faculty at the University of Virginia, where he taught for over forty years as the James Madison Professor of Law and later as Professor of Legal Medicine at UVA’s medical school.
He was the author or co-author of leading casebooks in domestic relations, children in the legal system, and law and medicine. Captain Wadlington is survived by his wife, one son, and three daughters.
Flags stand vigil at gravesites in Arlington National Cemetary. (Credit: Adam Skoczylas)
Of Note:
John W. “Jack” Matthews (1940–2019)
Jack Matthews, known to many JAs from his time as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army responsible for the Army Board of Correction for Military Records, died on 5 June 2019. Born on 30 November 1940, Matthews graduated from Duke University in 1962 and obtained his law degree from George Washington University in 1965. He then served in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1965 until 1971, when he left active duty and transitioned to the Air Force Reserve.
Matthews then joined the Department of the Army as a civilian attorney in 1973. He subsequently became the Executive Secretary, Army Board of Correction of Military Records. In 1984, was selected for entry in the Career Senior Executive Service Program and then served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for the Army Military Review Boards. Matthews is survived by his wife, two daughters, and a grandson.
Richard M. “Rich” Mollison (1944–2019)
Born on 4 July 1944, Mollison died on 26 June 2019. He was a retired captain in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Army JAs who served in the 1990s will remember Mollison from his tenure as the senior Navy lawyer on the Defense Department’s Joint Service Committee on Military Justice. Captain (Ret.) Mollison was just shy of his seventy-fifth birthday at the time of his death.
Harris Goodall Squires (1985-2019)
Harris, son of Colonel (Ret.) Malcolm and Kathy Squires, died on 12 November 2019. Harris was thirty-four years old. Born at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 3 November 1985, Harris moved many times in his youth with his military family. He was a graduate of Virginia Tech and Seattle University. Harris taught English for three years in South Korea before returning to teach in Fairfax schools and coach girls’ soccer at Madison High School. He had a passion for travel and adventure with friends around the world. Harris is survived by his parents, his brother, sister-in-law, and niece.
Mr. Borch is the Regimental Historian, Archivist, and Professor of Legal History and Leadership.