<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p><em>Jack Evans Elder</em> was born August 12, 1938 in the Philippines. An Army brat, and the first of three sons of Colonel Frank (USMA 1933) and Barbara Elder, he grew up on Army posts.</p>
<p>After graduating from Anchorage High School (Alaska), Jack followed his father’s Army career by attending West Point, entering in 1956. He joined the Ski Club, the Art Club, the French Club, the Camera Club, and the Fencing Club; earned numerals on the Rifle Team; participated in the Dialectic Society and the Debate Council; and sang in the Cadet Chapel Choir and the Glee Club.</p>
<p>Jack claimed to have been forced to walk 100 hours punishment because the authorities didn’t see his “hidden talent.” Nevertheless, he managed to escort a succession of young women so strikingly attractive that his classmates could not help noticing. He said later that his mother dutifully selected them and sent them up for weekends without asking him.</p>
<p>After graduation and Infantry, Ranger, and airborne training at Fort Benning, GA, Jack served in Germany with the 41st Infantry Regiment (1961-62) and as ADC to the CG, Seventh Army (1962-63). Returning to the U.S., he commanded A Company, 46th Infantry Regiment at Fort Hood, TX (1964-65).</p>
<p>Jack’s next assignment (1965-66) was Vietnam, first as an advisor to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 43rd Infantry Regiment, 10th Division (“Number Ten”) in Xuân Lộc (joining his designated battalion “too late for a supper of chicken heads and rice”); then at Dong Nai Special Zone Fire Coordination Center at Bien Hoa. More than once, artillery and air support recklessly caused ARVN as well as civilian casualties, but senior U.S. commanders refused to admit responsibility, even to the point of lying, which later in his tour Jack was to observe “very regularly.” These and other unprofessional actions by senior U.S. officers caused him to become “thoroughly disenchanted” with the Army.</p>
<p>Returning to the U.S., he served on the staff of Ranger School at Fort Benning in 1966, resigning from the Army in 1967 as a captain. Later that year he became a manufacturing supervisor at Corning Electronics, Raleigh, NC.</p>
<p>While at Ranger School he had replied to a CIA ad, according to Jack many years later, “just for fun.” But he grew up in an atmosphere of service to country: not only his father but also his maternal and paternal grandfathers and maternal great-grandfather had served in the Army. (Jack’s two younger brothers, Bill and Jim, went on to serve as well.) When the CIA offered him an appointment, he accepted it. Jack and Julie Bland, a teacher whom he met at Fort Benning, were married June 8, 1968 and moved to Northern Virginia, where he underwent CIA training. Then, in 1969, they were off to their first assignment, Bangkok, where he combined military and CIA resources “in support of our many wars in the Far East,” and Julie taught at the International School. They traveled throughout Asia. In 1971 their son, Kip, was born in Bangkok, and they returned to Virginia the following year.</p>
<p>In 1974 they were assigned to Paris. It was “a wonderful tour.” Julie opened an American pre-school in the embassy housing compound. They traveled throughout Europe.</p>
<p>Soon after they returned to Virginia in 1976, their daughter, Katy, was born. By 1979 Jack had earned an M.S. in computer science at George Washington University. Ever on the lookout for adventure, he went TDY as a French linguist to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he listened to the fall of Idi Amin.</p>
<p>From 1983 to 1985, Jack served as chief of support for a communications base in Athens, Greece. The family traveled the Mediterranean area and toured Italy and France before returning to the U.S.</p>
<p>In Virginia, while Kip and Katy were in high school and college, Jack provided computer support to the CIA Office of Technical Service. He retired in 1990, while Julie continued to teach school in Fairfax County, retiring in 2003. Jack returned to full-time contract work for the CIA, retiring for good in 2007, and the couple moved to Lake Oconee, GA, where they would be closer to Kip and Katy.</p>
<p>Although his dry sense of humor might have led some classmates to think that his singing in the Cadet Chapel Choir and the Glee Club was to earn weekends away from West Point, in truth Jack deeply loved music. In Athens he started a jazz combo. Later, in Virginia, he organized the New HOTS Jazz Orchestra, which ran for 20 years, touring France, Italy, and New Zealand several times. From one of his ads: HOTS offers delightful journeys back to the Naughty 1890s, the Roaring ’20s, the Jazz Age ’30s, and the Swing Era ’40s—complete with period costumes, instrumentation, and arrangements. The music is rhythmic and exciting, the melodies tuneful and familiar, and most important, HOTS generates fun and excitement.</p>
<p>Jack, always an adventurer, loved to travel the globe. His and Julie’s rich experiences abroad led him enthusiastically to introduce his friends to traveling overseas. He also drew and painted with unusual skill and created small model-train displays, models of European villages, and a circus—all in meticulous detail. Guiding children through those displays gave him great pleasure.</p>
<p>Truly a man of many talents, Jack greatly loved life and his family. He is survived by his wife, Julie; his children, Kip (Amee) and Katy; his brothers, Jim (Ann) and Bill (Daryl); and several nieces and nephews.</p>
<p>Well Done, Jack! Be Thou at Peace. We love you and miss you.</p>
</body>
</html>