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<p><em>William Francis Hurley Page </em>came to West Point from the Tar Heel State, fresh out of high school. Like all his classmates, he hit the ground running, and the running did not seem to stop until Beast Barracks was over. He was fortunate to be assigned to a squad that included a classmate (Ralph Stephenson) who had gone through Beast with the Class of 1956 and who knew how to shine shoes and brass. He also knew which pieces of new cadet knowledge were most useful. Bill still managed to get “slugged” for sleeping in chapel, which would have been really hard to do if it had not come on a rainy day when chapel was held in the theater. He immediately developed a distaste for walking the Area and managed to get through the next four years without further tours. He spent these four years in Company D-2.</p>
<p>He managed to make the Plebe Baseball Team, which got him to a training table in the spring, and spent yearling winter as a basketball assistant manager, but most of his seasons were spent as a member of various intramural squads. His other activities included the Cadet Chapel Choir and the Cadet Glee Club. A very important event during yearling year was his football game blind date with Judith Bintliff, who soon became his steady date and, on the day after graduation, his bride.</p>
<p>Bill’s older brother and his brother-in-law were both pilots in World War II, and he came to West Point with a firm plan to go into the Air Force and be a fighter pilot. That plan nearly got scuttled when, due to an extremely honest answer to the question, “Have you ever had motion sickness?” on the Air Force entry physical, he was notified that he was not pilot qualified. After a successful appeal to the Air Force surgeon general, he breathed a sigh of relief and cancelled his order for Army blues.</p>
<p>Pilot training at Bartow, FL; Big Spring, TX; and Valdosta, GA followed graduation. The first real squadron assignment was as an F-86L pilot at Hanscom AFB, MA. Daughter Allison was born during this tour. When this squadron closed the following spring, Bill was reassigned to Dow AFB, ME, where the Page clan grew with the births of son John in 1961 and daughter Priscilla in 1963. Many lifelong friendships were formed in the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Dow.</p>
<p>In 1964, the Pages were selected for the faculty at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and departed Maine for a master’s program in applied math at NCSU. This two-year assignment allowed the Page children to get to know their paternal grandparents, who lived two hours away. Graduating in June 1966 with the nation’s Vietnam involvement steadily increasing, Bill got the math department to agree to an interrupted teaching tour so he could have a “combat sabbatical.” This came after two years in the department and led to his checkout in the F-4 Phantom and eventual assignment to Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam. Judith and the children relocated to Hawaii, where she served as an informal R&R coordinator for many of Bill’s squadron mates. Bill flew 129 combat missions in 10 months, then surprised the family with an early return. After that, he completed his USAFA tour and was assigned to exchange duty with the Royal Air Force at Cranwell, England. Then it was back to Hawaii for a long tour at the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters. His promotion to colonel came during his last year at Hickam Air Force Base, HI, and he was reassigned to Headquarters, Electronic Systems Division, once again at Hanscom AFB. Five years later he decided to retire, after completing an evening MBA program, and was hired by GTE Government Systems.</p>
<p>While working at GTE, he completed a Master of Education program at Harvard University and, when he was laid off after the government cancelled the program he was working on, got a teaching job at an independent high school for girls. Several years later, after some serious travelling, Bill and Judith relocated to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where Bill’s teaching continued part-time at Cape Cod Community College. Both the Pages got seriously involved in Habitat for Humanity's efforts to provide simple, descent, affordable housing to people in need. That involvement led to overseas builds in New Zealand, Zimbabwe, and Uganda, as well as continuous work on Cape Cod.</p>
<p>When he was not teaching, tutoring, or hammering nails, Bill could usually be found on the golf course or the softball field. He played several years in the Cape Cod Old-Timers Softball League, an activity that he was convinced kept him young and healthy. He had a longtime goal to get his handicap below 10, but that goal will have to be achieved in another life.</p>
<p><em>— Self-written</em></p>
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