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I was not so selfish as to deprive a family member, classmate or longtime friend of the opportunity and delight, having outlived me, of writing this obituary, except for good reason. I wrote this obituary because I want­ed my existence recorded correctly, for as you will read my life experiences were much different from those of most U.S. Military Academy graduates.</p>
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Like many others, I was descended from Samuel Hart, an Episcopal rector who immigrated to Charles Town, SC, from England and died while serving as a chaplain in the Continental Army in 1779. Another ancestor, Hart’s son-in-law, COL James Mayson (1739–99) an emigrant from Scotland, was a planter and patriot who served with distinction in the Cherokee Wars and Revolutionary War and later be­came a judge in Newberry County, SC. Other ancestors in the “up-country” of South Carolina included the Hannons (massacred by Cherokee Indians in 1776), lumbermen, a whiskey salesman (God bless him!), physicians, lawyers and a wholesale grocer. In addition, a cousin traced our an­cestry back to Charles Morgan in Wales, the brother of the privateer, Sir Henry Morgan. Now I know from where the whiskey sales­man got his inspiration.</p>
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My mother was Rowena Morgan Mayson and my father was COL Preston Brooks Mayson, U.S. Army, who was an attorney and judge in Spartanburg, SC, af­ter his retirement from the Army. My only brother, COL Elford Morgan Mayson, was a distinguished graduate of West Point, Class of 1956, who wore academic stars—I never came close. So the genes of privateers, Indian fighters, farmers, whiskey peddlers, soldiers, physicians, lawyers and judges bade me to “tread where they had trod.”</p>
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Of course, I was justly proud of my immediate family. My wife, Sara Dudley Heaton Mayson, is the daughter of the late LTG Leonard Dudley Heaton, Medical Corps, who was the Army Surgeon General. My older son, Brooks Heaton Mayson, a graduate of Washington & Lee University, was a commercial airline pilot and now runs his own business. My younger son, James Dudley Mayson, is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College and Emory School of Law and defends doctors in medical malpractice law suits.</p>
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Sara and I were married on 16 Jun 1955, and my first two assignments were with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 25th Infantry Division. I was granted a leave of absence from the Army in 1958 and entered medical school, was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society in my junior year, and received my Doctor of Medicine degree in 1962 from George Washington University. I was Chief of Radiology in the 93rd Evacuation Hospital in Viet Nam from September 1966 until October 1967. Then I returned to Walter Reed Hospital and became Chief of the Diagnostic Radiology Department in 1969. I left the Army in 1970 and practiced pri­vate radiology in Roanoke, VA, until 1988, when I entered law school. I received my law degree in 1991 and practiced medical malpractice law in Roanoke until 2000, when I retired.</p>
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My interesting, stimu­lating and multi-disciplined careers mostly sprang from my curiosity. Could I do it, could I take the pain and accomplish the task? We all remembered that nagging question at the beginning of Plebe year, on the darkest nights in Ranger School, in Viet Nam, and at many other difficult times during our lives. West Point was a challenge; so was medi­cal school, the practice of medicine, Viet Nam, law school, the practice of law, and especially the open court room. Could I handle it all and achieve at least a modicum of success? Today, I would like to say and hope that over and above what I have done as listed, would be any help, good impressions and influenc­es, not only to my family and close friends, but to the many individuals that I have been blessed to serve as my patients and clients.</p>
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So, if I found any purpose to life, it was this—cram life as full as possible, and your rewards will be in your mind, your heart and in your understanding. Finally, I decid­ed a long time ago to allow my loved ones, my friends, and my enemies to reach their own judgments of me. But as for myself, I completely enjoyed being unpredictable and a non-conformist.</p>
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Although in retirement I became a mod­estly successful landscape painter, having sold more than 300 paintings as of the time I wrote this, my death arrived before I had finished much that I intended to do. Just the same, from where I am, I am at peace and should there be a stone for me, let it read: Soldier, Physician, Lawyer, Artist—he played the game of life and won.</p>
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—<em>Self-written 20 Mar 2009 </em><em>Preston Brooks Mayson, Jr.</em></p>
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