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<em>Richard “Diamond Dick” Aldridge</em>: A wonderful man, more devoted, sincere, and dedicated than most, but a complex personality. His minister calls him “a man of deep thought and solitude.” An astute, close friend describes him as “one of the last true Southern gentlemen.”</p>
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His widow says he was “a very private person;” deeply loyal to West Point, the Service, our Nation, his Church, and his friends; proud to be an Air Force officer; a loving, caring husband and father, whose principal character traits were loyalty, honesty and kindness.</p>
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We remember him from cadet days as lighthearted, friendly, always joking and pantomiming, an excellent cartoonist and caricaturist, a self-styled roué, goat, and “Red Boy” devote, indifferent to the system. But was that truly Dick? How much was facade? The Tacs concluded much of it was, and made him so high a sergeant for first class summer that he joined “Club 23” at Tobyhanna to reestablish his practiced image. We admired his stand when a popular I Company classmate was found guilty of lying. And although he sweated each writ, he graduated ahead of 78 of our classmates.</p>
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Undoubtedly all these varying views were part of him.</p>
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Richards Abner Aldridge was born in Mobile, Alabama, 23 January 1918, to prominent parents: Henri Showell Aldridge and Caroline Richards McMillan Aldridge. He attended Mobile’s Murphy High School and Marion Military Institute, was appointed to West Point from Alabama, married an Alabama girl, returned to Mobile on retiring from the Air Force, and is buried there. Always an Alabamian!</p>
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After graduation, he promptly achieved the boyhood goal that had motivated his persistence to get through West Point: to become a regular, commissioned, military pilot. Flight school posed no problems—he had soloed at age 14.</p>
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Unfortunately, however, his combat flying career ended abruptly. On 5 April 1943, then Captain Aldridge, operations officer, 428th Bomber Squadron, Twelfth Air Force, piloting a B-25 attacking Sicily, was shot down over the Mediterranean on his return run. Regaining consciousness under water, wounded, and still strapped in his seat, he freed himself, found two of his crew dead; yet, with another survivor, began swimming, while holding afloat a third man whose two legs were broken. Before reaching shore, they were captured by an Italian PT boat. For these actions, Dick was awarded the Air Medal and Purple Heart.</p>
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Initially held in solitary by the Italians, he was moved to Germany by boxcar on Italy’s surrender. For almost two years, he was in Stalag Luft 3, until freed 29 April 1945 by American tankers. Here again, his humor and art skills came forth, forging ID’s and otherwise assisting organized escape attempts; always referring in later years to humorous POW experiences, rather than the bad.</p>
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Shortly after returning home, Dick met Beanie Cotten of Grove Hill, Alabama, and they married 30 December 1945. This cute, attractive lady thoroughly complemented Dick’s personality, accelerating his recovery. Family devotion was thereafter a paramount aspect of his life, as 1954 saw Caroline Blair arrive at Belvoir, and 1958 brought Elisabeth Wilkes to Hawaii: two fine girls, of whom he was forever proud.</p>
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Postwar service was varied and interesting: staff specialization in personnel matters at SAC Headquarters and Ramey, IG duty at Snelling, direction of Air Reserve operations in DC, overseas in Puerto Rico and Hawaii, two tours at Maxwell—from where he retired from the Air Force in June 1961.</p>
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With customary family concern, Dick had purchased a prime residential lot in Mobile years before, and, during his final tour at Maxwell, he applied his skill and lifelong interest in architecture to design the beautiful home he subsequently built there. He also joined a large investment firm and was soon a very successful stockbroker. Personal interests continued to include his family, drawing, and caricaturing, plus sculpturing and design of patios and gardens for friends’ homes. He built a vacation home on nearby Dauphin Island, where he enjoyed sailing and fishing. He was a Kiwanian, a deacon in the church to which four generations of his family had belonged, a director of the local Red Cross, and active in the Mobile Mystic Society his grandfather had helped found. A good time for Dick! He was the happy, carefree classmate of cadet days.</p>
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But this too came to an end. One Saturday afternoon, while he and Beanie were quietly enjoying the beauties of Dauphin Island, an unheralded heart attack ended his life. Although Dick never mentioned specific POW-related problems, that experience undoubtedly undermined his general health.</p>
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Although we grieve this premature loss of so true a friend, we take solace that death was sudden and painless. Neither he nor we would wish him a slow, deteriorating end.</p>
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What all this tells us is that Dick Aldridge outstandingly represented the principles of the Long Gray Line:</p>
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—A man of integrity who based his decisions on principle rather than expediency, choosing to stand alone, supported only by his conscience, before the criticisms of less honorable accommodators;</p>
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—A man of many talents who avoided blowing his own horn;</p>
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—A dedicated patriot who gave up his freedom for years of Hell, that other Americans might remain free;</p>
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—A guardian of America’s values, rewarded only by his conviction that he had stood his ground and did what he knew was right;</p>
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—A man you liked and liked to be with, a man you knew you could trust whatever the situation.</p>
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Dick, we miss you.</p>
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<em>E.L.P.,</em> a classmate</p>
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