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Found among his papers was a note Alfred Balsam had written about four years previously:</div>
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“When I die, please have my body cremated. The following squib should be adequate: ‘ASB was appointed from Birmingham, Alabama, to the USMA where he graduated in 1915. Served 31 years and Forced to retire as a result of imprisonment in Japan. He leaves his beloved wife “Dolly” and two sons, Howard and Dixon Balsam, who both live in the East.’ ”</div>
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<em>Alfred </em>was born in Birmingham on 29 April 1889. (Many years later he wryly remarked that he had the same birth date as the Emperor of Japan.) As he grew, his parents made him learn to play the piano. This skill proved advantageous, for when he later attended Birmingham College (now Birmingham Southern) with the aim of going to West Point, he paid his own way in part by playing at the silent movies and by teaching piano. He also swept floors and taught in a preparatory school to augment his earnings.</div>
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With an appointment from Senator Bankhead, Alfred entered West Point on 1 March 1910 with the Class of 1914. Here he acquiesced in a clerical error which changed his middle name from "Schreiber" to “Schrieber. Although be had earned top grades in mathematics at Birmingham College, inadequacies in the subject turned him back to the Class of 1915. He excelled in boxing, winning first place in the lightweight class and captain of the boxing squad in his First Class year.</div>
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Graduating in June 1915, Alfred was assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment in San Francisco. In February 1918, the regiment was transferred to Fort D.A. Russell, Cheyenne, Wyoming. There he met and wooed Emily Frances Jones, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Howard Jones. Their courtship culminated in marriage three weeks later (22 March), the regiment having been ordered to join the Pershing Expedition to Mexico,</div>
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For the next two and one-half years, the regiment "was glued to the border of Mexico” Alfred's words, from an autobiographical sketch written in 1901 from which much of this information is taken) well after America’s entry into World War I. He finally was ‘‘unglued” in September 1918—for troop training duty at Camp Travis, Texas, followed by Reserve Officers’ Training Corps tours at several colleges in South Dakota and Minnesota for the next four years.</div>
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His two sons were born during the border period. Also during this period, his rank fluctuated from first lieutenant, to captain, to temporary major, to captain, to major (16 July 1920).</div>
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In September 1922, Alfred joined the 19th Infantry Regiment in San Francisco, and served with it at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, for the following three years. After student tours at The Infantry School, Fort Banning, and the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, he was assigned for nine months to the 25th Infantry Regiment at Nogales, Arizona, one of his old stations. This was followed by a three-year tour with the 8th Corps Area General Staff, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.</div>
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During this period, Alfred adopted tennis as a sport providing maximum exercise with minimum expense and number of players, for which facilities were usually available.</div>
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Having become interested in tanks and motor vehicles in 1931 at The Tank School, Fort George C. Meade, Maryland, Alfred moved on to the Quartermaster Depot, Holabird, Baltimore, in 1934, and transferred to the Quartermaster Corps in 1936. It was as Philippine Division Quartermaster and Commanding Officer, 12th Quartermaster Regiment, that he began his foreign service tour in Manila in 1939. His wife Emily accompanied him, but not his sons, who became employed in the aircraft industry. He played tennis here in the fierce tropic heat with many younger opponents.</div>
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Although his foreign service tour was completed about July 1941, General Wainwright delayed the departure of all officers because of probable war with Japan. With other dependents, Emily returned to the States. She tended “Shoestring Manor," a small home on a former 77-acre farm on Taylors Island, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. She remained here, with another Colonel s Lady," for the war which soon followed.</div>
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On 7 December with the Japanese attack he was appointed Corps Quartermaster of the I Philippine Corps. After a battle lasting until 9 April 1942, Alfred was surrendered with the I Corps on Bataan Peninsula.</div>
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In the prisoner-of-war ordeal which followed for some three and a half years, commencing with the Bataan Death March, Alfred’s tennis-toughened health undoubtedly enabled his survival while many younger men died. However, his digestion was ruined. He kept a diary on paper scraps in his own code. Some years after release, he discovered that he had forgotten the code!</div>
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The senior officer group in which he was held was first shipped to Taiwan, then moved to Beppu, Kyushu, then to Northern Manchuria. At the end of the war they were at Mukden, where the Russians freed them in August 1945.</div>
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Returned to the United States, Alfred was hospitalized and was retired on 30 November 1946 for physical disability.</div>
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Selling "Shoestring Manor,” Alfred and Emily moved to Carmel Highlands, south of Carmel, California. There, in "Surf Song,” they lived for 11 happy years. He joined the “Convivium," whose small membership consisted of retired Army and Navy officers and retired professional men. Alfred also served as head of the Highlands Fire Commission for much of this time.</div>
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In December 1958 Emily, his beloved wife of 43 years, died after a brief illness in the hospital at Fort Ord.</div>
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Alfred soon entered the hospital himself, largely because of a heart attack. In October 1959 he left the hospital and shortly thereafter met Frances (Dolly) Fairfax Harrison, daughter of the former Governor General of the Philippines, Francis B. Harrison, and the late Mrs. Judson Harrison of Pebble Beach, California. They were married Christmas Eve, 1959, and lived happily in Dolly’s home in Carmel until his death.</div>
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