A special graduation for one family with local ties
June 6, 1944 and May 25, 2019. Nearly 75 years apart.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Cadet Jack Murph Pollin graduated from West Point. This week, Brigadier General Pollin, PhD, U.S. Army Retired, and 97 years old from Tucson, Arizona, is back at West Point to attend the graduation of his granddaughter, Cadet Mary Grace Pollin, Class of 2019.
Tomorrow, May 25, Cadet Pollin, the daughter of Commander, U.S. Navy Retired, John and Lisa Pollin of Burke, Va., will be commissioned a second lieutenant by her grandfather on the steps of West Point’s Most Holy Trinity Catholic Chapel. She selected the location because her grandfather and grandmother, Virginia Copithorne Pollin, were married at the Catholic Chapel 75 years ago on D-Day, hours after graduation. Other than separations during WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, they enjoyed 64 wonderful years together.
BG Pollin’s 41 years in the U.S. Army included three tours (equalling 23 years) at West Point, where he was head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences for 11 years.
While stationed at West Point, the Pollin family had ties to Highland Falls — both Mary Grace’s father John and his sister, Mary Beth, graduated from O’Neill High School. In addition, their mother, Virginia, “stayed in Highland Falls many weekends in the early 1940’s when she was dating my dad, and was a well-loved substitute teacher at the Highland Falls Elementary School from 1968-1985”, Mary Beth Pollin Spiece said this week.
Spiece and her husband, Don, USMA 1976, travelled from Arizona to West Point with BG Pollin to attend graduation.
As the West Point alma mater says … the long gray line of us stretches, thro’ the years of a century told …
