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<em>Frank Upton Greer III</em> will be a man re­membered by all who knew him for his love of life, family, and country, and the ability to light up a room with his fun-loving personal­ity. He will be remembered for his passions for sports, reading, and talking politics with who­ever would indulge him. He will be remem­bered as someone who always pulled for and had a kinship with the underdog. Frank will be remembered as someone very proud and honored to have been a member of the Long Gray Line.</p>
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Frank Greer was born at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, DC, on 18 Mar 1932, the fourth of the five children of then CPT (later BG) Frank Upton Greer and May Mann Greer. He grew up with the scenes and sounds of Army life and the frequent moves required of a military fam­ily. He changed schools eight different times between the years 1941 and 1946, when his father retired and the family moved to Gainesville, FL. He could recall many cross country family drives from one post to an­other. After one such move, from Rhode Island to Florida during his elementary school days, he liked to tell how he had to discard his favorite knickers, as that fashion was unknown to Florida kids.</p>
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Frank went to Gainesville High School, where his life-long commitment to physi­cal fitness took hold, and he played high school football his junior and senior years. He liked the physical play and contact on the Gainesville Purple Hurricanes defensive line. He loved telling the story of how he had been sick one week and missed practice, so the coach put him in for only one play. He broke into the backfield, however, and tack­led the ball carrier so hard that he forced a fumble. He was excited, but all the coaches or anyone else noticed was that a teammate had recovered the fumble.</p>
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As the son of a retired general, with two older brothers having already gone to West Point, Frank naturally planned to go there, too. He spent a year at Sully’s Prep School in Washington after high school to prepare for the West Point entrance exams. His father passed away in 1949, so he was able to receive a “Sons of Deceased Veteran” appointment and entered the Academy on 5 Jul 1950.</p>
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At West Point, he was introduced to and developed a lifelong passion for two new contact sports: lacrosse and wrestling. He re­gretted that he had not discovered both ear­lier in life, so that he could have been more proficient by the time he arrived at the acade­my. At slightly over six feet tall, and normally over 190 pounds, he wrestled at 177 pounds and, at times, as a heavyweight.</p>
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Never a great student, he found Spanish particularly difficult, and this subject caused him to be turned back to the class of 1955. Afterwards, he always liked to say that the three Greer boys averaged four years each at the academy—brother Charles graduated in three years with the wartime class of 1945; brother Tug graduated in four in the class of 1950; and Frank graduated in five with the Class of 1955.</p>
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Upon graduation, he went to Ft. Benning, GA, for the Infantry Officer Basic Course. While there, he accomplished three milestones: completion of Airborne School, completion of Ranger School, and meeting the love of his life, Louise Yarborough. His oldest brother Charles, an assistant ROTC instructor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, told Frank that if he drove down for the weekend, he would arrange a blind date with the homecoming queen. Frank agreed, but his date had to back out at the last minute and asked Louise to fill in for her. After that first date, Frank was smitten, and he married Louise after she graduated in June 1956. It was to be a happy union that lasted for 44 years and produced four chil­dren and five grandchildren.</p>
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After they were married, they moved to the Panama Canal Zone for Frank to begin a three-year tour with the 25th Infantry as a rifle company platoon leader. Their first child, daughter Elizabeth Lynn Greer, was born there in September 1957. In 1958, Frank decided to leave the Army for a ci­vilian job with Procter & Gamble, and the family moved to Atlanta, GA. Their second daughter, Eugenia Ann Greer, was born there in 1959. In 1960, Frank was transferred to Jacksonville, FL, where his two sons were born: Jess Charles Greer in I960 and Frank Upton Greer IV, in 1962.</p>
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Changing jobs to join the 3M Company, Frank moved the family to the beautiful city of Greenville, SC, in 1965, where he was to live the rest of his life. His sales career continued in Greenville as he also worked with the College Life Insurance Company, Commerce Clearing House (CCH), and the George S. May Company. He won several sales awards during this period before retir­ing in the nineties.</p>
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In Greenville, Frank served as a little league baseball coach for several years for his sons’ team in the seventies. In addition to Army sports, he was an avid follower of the Minnesota Twins, the Atlanta Braves, the Washington Redskins, and the Clemson Tigers. Frank was a voracious reader, as the full bookshelf in his den was a testament. Two of his favorite authors were Louis L’Amour and Alistair MacLean.</p>
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Frank was a lifelong fitness buff and run­ner. After a mild stroke in 1993 that fortu­nately left him with no after-effects, he con­tinued to remain in good health until 4 Jan 2001, when he died instantly of a massive heart attack upon the completion of a three mile run.</p>
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We will miss Frank’s optimistic outlook on life and his sense of fun but remember the positive impact he had on all of our lives.</p>
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<em>—His family</em></p>