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As a provisional 2d Lieutenant fresh from the first Plattsburg training camp in the early summer of 1917, the writer joined the 19th United States Cavalry on the plains of Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont. The regiment, an offshoot of a three-way split of the old 2d Cavalry, was in tents. One reported to the adjutant in the studied Moss Manual procedure of the times and then sought his bearings. Other provisional had joined and were joining. There were some real old timers in the field ranks but one dared not approach them. From all the newcomers one heard that there was just one bearing to take and that was on the Colonel—<em>Guy Henry Preston</em> of the United States Cavalry. “Have you seen the Colonel yet?” “Have you seen his corn cob pipe?” “Did you hear what he said to Albro?” etc. etc. Epigrammatical and pungent he was always the most quoted and the most referred to man on the three-regimental post. From the minute we had our assignment, “the Colonel” was to us a prodigious figure, very real yet at the same time almost legendary. Each day on the bulletin board in the adjutant’s tent were brief but startlingly pithy admonitions to his officers, written in his own hand and style, signed merely—”P., Col.”</p>
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We gained infrequent glimpses of him under the fly of his tent for he was not one of those peripatetic officers who spend most of their time looking over the picket line or inspecting the contents of the garbage pails. He didn’t need to. These glimpses enhanced our awe—they were of a grizzled lean, rawboned, piercing figure, forever pacing up and down and always deep in thought. Only Frederick Remington could have done him justice and one of the then current stories of him was that Remington had once painted him into one of his western pictures. Strong in his stance and mien, he conveyed to us in a strangely powerful form all the flavor, all the tradition, all the character, of the “Old Army” mixed with an almost rebelliously modern turn of mind. And this influence never faded.</p>
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The provisional officers were soon left to their own resources for the old Regulars drifted away to other assignments leaving only Major Edgar Whiting—another beloved character, halt horse, half man—and The Colonel. Now he is dead, and again Assembly marks the passing of a real link with the past. But this man was more than a link. He was a force in himself—a spark, a mind, a symbol—one of the two or three most impressive figures the writer has ever met, in or out of the Army, in or out of the country. Not long ago there appeared in this magazine a colorful record of the life of Brigadier General Frederick S. Foltz—”Freddy,” as Preston called him. Preston was of that ilk and era. There have been other accounts which, as Foltz’s and Preston’s, point up the unbelievable shortness of the span of our nation’s history—from Wounded Knee to Korea. But there will not be many more.</p>
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Preston came from New England. When he left the Academy his first duty was at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and later he commanded a detachment of Indian scouts in South Dakota. Cited for gallantry at Wounded Knee against the Sioux, he also participated in the fight with the hostiles near Drexel Mission. The “Cowboy War,” the Klondike, Puerto Rico—all added to his alert mind and spirit the vividness of rich experience of men and events that made him the entertaining and provocative character that he was. Tolerance and detestation of sham and laziness were equally prominent in his nature. Cheerful, forthright, and imaginative, eager, unconventional and inventive, he was both bold and shy. Possibly his personality was so impressive because he was such a creature of contrasts. He was an honest man but he never preached his virtues. “I always tell the truth”; he once said, “after a long period of experimentation I find I can remember it longer.”</p>
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After other varied assignments such as the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Myer and Riley—even a tour in Washington as an aide to Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles—Preston came to Ethan Allen and to the 2d Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Joseph T. Dickman, who was shortly to move abroad to high command. Thence from command of the 77th Field Artillery (the former 19th Cavalry) to the 160th Field Artillery Brigade at Camp Custer, Preston set sail for France with as much enthusiasm and eagerness as any of his lieutenants. Arriving too late to take part in the major engagements of 1917-1918, he was poised with his brigade along the Moselle to take part in the offensive scheduled for November 14th down the Moselle to Metz. His ambitions collapsed with the Armistice, but not his spirit. He was placed in command of Advance GHQ at Trier, finally returning to the United States to face the drastic reductions in rank that followed World War I and, after a proud interlude as Commander of the 1st Cavalry, retirement.</p>
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The Armistice came while Preston was on the Moselle at Pont-a-Mousson. We took a walk up to the old front line just forward of Bois de le Pretre of bloody fame, and after gulping down his disappointment at not having achieved command of a promised division he mused, “Well Mac, I’ll never command a division or a corps in war but” (if the writer may employ a thinly concealed euphemism) “I have my brand on every horse’s bottom in the Army and that is no small achievement.” Those who were of his time will recall he had invented the Preston brand. Incidentally, he also exerted a strong influence on the form of the mess kit used in World War II—if it cannot be said he invented it. He used to say, “I have spent most of my life eating ‘slum’ because of this damned mess kit. I intend to do something about it.” Although he was Cavalry to the core, he never had much use for the horse as a means of transportation. He railed at those who were reluctant to motorize and pounded at all the powers that disposed of such matters to develop the liaison plane and the helicopter. Aerial observation of artillery fire was his passion and he used to tear into the air people at Sazerais and Bar le Due who would not, and could not for that matter, supply observation planes for his artillery officers.</p>
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Friendliness and conviviality were mixed, as has been suggested, with a definite reticence. He was no mere extrovert. His visits in France with his old friends such as “Minnie” Menoher, “Bunker” Hahn and “Jack” Pershing, and many others, enriched both him and them. With Pershing he had a particularly close relationship, growing out of a tour of duty together in the old 10th Cavalry and as co-aides to General Miles in Washington. Pershing, it seems, relaxed more with him than with any other of his contemporaries. But so it was with others—for his colorful, wide-ranging vocabulary, his penetrating and frequently iconoclastic surges, and, above all, his ideas and his knowledge, fascinated all who were capable of his quality.</p>
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“History passed me by,” he used to say; but he was wrong. Others for various reasons—some obscure—reached the high command which fame notes, but he was quite as much a part of the vital history of the country as they. Now and then men like him, in their wide and vigorous reactions to the life and times in which they live, represent their era and influence it quite as deeply, if not more, than the publicly noted leaders.</p>
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Guy Henry Preston of the Class of 1888 had the indefinable mark of the Military Academy of his day upon him, and the Academy can take pride in the fact that in his formative years it stimulated the growth of such an imposing personality and character.</p>
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<em>—John J. McCloy</em></p>
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