<div>
<em>Lester Joseph Tacy </em>was born on 9 November 1898 in San Francisco, California.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
During World War I he attended Officers Candidate School and was commissioned a second lieutenant of Field Artillery. This experience influenced him to choose the Army as a career, and he entered the Military Academy on 1 July 1920 with the Class of 1924.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
A little older than the class average, Joe, as we all came to know him, was able to adjust quickly to cadet life. His ready smile and helpful and understanding attitude quickly won him many friends. Meticulous in his personal grooming, Joe always presented a spoony appearance. His academic work was excellent. He was a yearling corporal, but his venturesome spirit and zest for life soon placed him in the ranks of the “Busted Aristocrats” and "Area Birds." His great interest in life at the Academy won him a job in his second-class year as assistant editor of the plebe Bible, and he went on to become editor in his first-class year. His personal contribution was “These Gray Walls.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
A very close relationship existed between Joe and his father, and one remembers the white-haired old gentleman being escorted about the Plain by his son, who introduced him with great pride to classmates and friends.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe was no stranger to Cullum Hall either, and the sisters of his classmates and many other young ladies enjoyed being with him, hearing his ready laugh, and listening to his tales of cadet life.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe was not a religious man in the sense that he was a member of a church but he had strong leanings toward the Catholic Church "because it was so much like the military.” His profound faith in God and country, however, was reflected in his conduct and life after war came.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
On graduation Joe was assigned to the Field Artillery and served successively at Fort Mead, Fort Myer, and Schofield Barracks during the years 1924-1928. In addition to the usual battery officers’ duties, he attended the cooks and bakers school and also served as an instructor in English at the West Point Preparatory Schools.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe returned to the States in 1928 for assignment to the primary flying school at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas, but was back in Hawaii by June of that year. In 1929 he returned to the U.S. on permanent change of station to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he served first as a student and later as a member of the 1st Field Artillery until June 1933. From that time until May 1936, Lt. Tacy served at Fort Slocum, N.Y., as commanding officer of a bakery company and assistant commandant of the school for bakers and cooks. From Slocum he went to Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, where he commanded Battery B, 7th Field Artillery. His promotion to captain came on 1 August 1935.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe attended the German Field Artillery School at Potsdam in 1931, and in 1933, while on a trip to Italy, participated in ceremonies at the Tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier in Rome.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In 1929 Joe was married to the former Miriam Lyman Hill in Grace Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Gordon Textor was his best man.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In September 1939 the Tacys were ordered to the Philippines where Joe commanded a battery, then a battalion in the new Philippine armies. He was promoted to major on 1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>June 1941 and to lieutenant colonel in January 1942.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
When the war began in December 1941, Joe faced his great opportunity to serve his country. He was found proficient in this most rugged of all soldiers’ tests. One still remembers the story in a 1942 copy of Life magazine telling how Joe went forward, alone, as an observer to direct fire on the attacking Japanese in support of his beleaguered comrades. For his conduct in these battles he was awarded the Silver Star.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
To his beloved wife, Miriam, who had been evacuated early in 1941, he wrote from Bataan, "The happiest years of my life, I thank you for, my dear wife, Miriam.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In a prison camp at Davao, Mindanao, in 1943<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>he exhorted his comrades, “Don’t worry, boys, MacArthur will be back in 1944 before Christmas.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe died in the hospital of a prison camp at Fukuoka, Japan, on 9 February 1945, in the arms of a British sergeant. He had never had a record of sickness. His ashes, in a casket along with some 100 others, were interred in Jefferson Memorial Cemetery in 1950. Miriam attended the ceremony.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Joe had always wanted to be buried at West Point. Faithful to his wish, Miriam has placed a memorial to Joe in the little rose garden (Joe always loved flowers) just inside the cemetery gate in front of the Old Cadet Chapel at West Point. We’ll be able to see it there in future years.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
To Joe in the Long Gray Line, "Well Done.”</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
To Miriam, who keeps his memory green and flowering, a salute from '24.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<em>-John G. Hill</em></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>