Joseph Edward Giacomini, a longtime Marin resident and former dairyman who became a lawyer in his 50s, died at his home in San Rafael on Dec.
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Marin County Supervisor Charles McGlashan died Sunday after a ski trip near Lake Tahoe.

Suzanna “Suzy” Pierce Coxhead, a longtime Marin civic leader and active player in the debate over the future of Marin General Hospital, died Monday at her home in Tiburon after a year-and-a-half battle with cancer.
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Authorities have recovered the body of a Santa Rosa man who disappeared Dec. 11 after he fell overboard from a sailboat in Richardson Bay.
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IN MEMORIAM

COLONEL GEORGE S. PAPPAS (Retired)

December 26, 1919 to January 5, 2010

Colonel George S. Pappas, a natural born leader, gifted teacher, visionary researcher and thoughtful author passed away on January 5 at his home in Belvedere, California surrounded by his loving family.  He had just celebrated his 90^th birthday, December 26.

A professional soldier, George entered the United States Army in June, 1939, as an enlisted man in the 6^th Coast Artillery Regiment, at Fort Scott in San Francisco.  He attended the West Point Preparatory School where his potential for leadership earned him admission to the U.S. Military Academy.  After graduating on D-Day 1944, he was commissioned into the Anti-Aircraft/Air Defense Artillery branch at the Schofield Barracks Army Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, and in 1946 was appointed at the Commanding Officer of the Battery Gun Battalion in Hawaii.

Following the end of World War II, Colonel Pappas continued his lifetime love of learning when he earned his Masters in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin in 1949.  Colonel Pappas returned to his beloved West Point In 1951, as the assistant Sesquicentennial Director, and then was assigned in 1952 as the Assistant Public Information Officer at the U.S. Military Academy.

In 1957, George relocated to Colorado to serve as the Army Attaché to the Commander-in-Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) during the formative years of its development. In 1960, Colonel Pappas attended the United States Command and General Staff College and then was assigned to service Korea with the famed Eighth Army with the United States Army Air Defense Command.  In 1963 Colonel Pappas returned to the United States to first serve as the Commanding Officer of the 1^st Artillery at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, and then as the Assistant Chief of training at NORAD at Colorado Springs.

After graduating from the United States Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania in 1966, he was assigned to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) the central command of NATO military forces located in Paris France.

Colonel Pappas returned to Carlisle to serve on the faculty as Assistant Chief of the Research and Publications Branch at the Army War College, charged with the special responsibility of writing the history of the college.  The resulting book, Prudens Futuri: the U.S. Army War College, 1901-1967, published in 1967, was the first modern history of the Army’s senior service college.

Colonel Pappas continued his academic research at the War College by building the U.S. Army Military History Research Collection (MHRC).  In 1970, MHRC became the official central historical repository for the entire United States Army.  In 1977, MHRC was re-designated the U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI).  The MHI, in turn, became the core component upon which was built the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC), a 55 acre facility with instructional buildings and libraries housing 400,000 books (many of them from the old War Department Library), a million military manuals, 3,700 different military periodicals, 50,000 artifacts, 19,000 audio-visual items, 1,700,000 photos, and 12,000,000 manuscripts, where the legacy of Colonel Pappas continues today.

It was George’s vision that the AHEC would serve as the Army’s public library for military history, AHEC makes its holdings available to authors, scholars, professors, students, buffs, veterans, and the general public.  People visit or contact AHEC from all over the United States and all over the world to use these holdings, just as Col. Pappas had envisioned such an institution of public service.  Through his initiative, energy, drive, and self-sacrifice, he brought his vision to life.  He guarded it during its early years; he infused it with his indomitable passion for military history; and he set it on the track to what AHEC has become today.

Many enduring hallmarks of AHEC began under his direction:  the Veterans Survey program (1968), the “Perspectives in Military History” public lecture series (1968), the Omar Bradley Museum (1970), the Special Bibliography book series (1970), the offering of a military history elective course in the Army War College (1971), the Senior Officer Oral History Program (1972), and the General Harold Keith Johnson Visiting Professorship of Military History (1972).

In 1974, Col. Pappas ended his active military service retiring at Fort Scott, the same location in which he had been sworn into service in 1940.  He did not, however, retire from the military history profession.  He founded Presidio Press, a military history publishing house in San Rafael, California (recently purchased by Random House), where he served as its first president. He then worked many years at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories editing scientific research papers in its Berkeley, California site. He continued to author books, including The Cadet Chapel, United States Military Academy (pub 1987); To the Point: the United States Military Academy, 1802-1902 (pub 1993), and the second volume entitled, More To The Point, the United States Military Academy, 1902 to 2002 (a work fully researched and still in progress).

He was technical advisor to a modern movie about the U.S. Academies by a Russian film producer, and traveled to Moscow in the 1990s to advise on its technical accuracy, and further advised the same producer on a military film set in Portugal (George had also been technical advisor to one of John Ford’s classic movies, “The Long Gray Line” filmed at West Point in the 1950s).

In 1999, the Army War College recognized his many contributions by inducting him as a Distinguished Fellow. He often revisited the Research Collection at Carlisle Barracks, most recently for the 40^th anniversary in 2007.  He marveled at its continuing growth, and took immense pride in the passion of those who are responsible for its position in United States history and world leadership.  All who knew him, in turn, marveled at his ability to make his dream a reality.  His enduring legacy is AHEC:  the great institution, with the world’s greatest collection on American military history, which serves the War College, the Army, the history profession, and the American people.

His wife (whom he called “the love of his life”), Patricia, passed away in 2007, the daughter of William Reid (the first President of the Commodity Exchange, NYC), and Helen Kilwee Reid (first female editor at Hearst Publications, NYC in the early part of the 20^th century).  He is survived by their two daughters:  Reid Pappas and her partner Roger Bigelow of Phoenix, Arizona; and Margaret Pappas Goodman and son-in-law, Michael H. Koskie of Belvedere, California; three grandchildren, Reesa A. Wasser (Toronto), Lieutenant Colonel Bradley H. Koskie (Ottawa) and his wife Major Angela Koskie, and Korinne L. Koskie (Mill Valley, California); three great-grandchildren, Lee and Gilian Wasser (Toronto), and Jack W. F. Koskie (Ottawa); and by his sister, Marie Capps and brother-in-law Brigadier General (ret) Jack Capps (formerly head of the English department, West Point, NY).

George Pappas will be remembered for his unwavering belief in and example of integrity and honesty. He had a passion for life and was an author and a collector, including one of the world’s largest and most important assemblies of military insignia. He lived his life well to the end, celebrating his 90^th birthday on 26 December 2009 with family and friends present, including Fielding (Doc) and Jean Grieves (San Rafael, California), fellow West Point classmate from the Class of 1944. He spent not a single day in a hospital in his 90 years, and was heard to say that, “all of my problems are in my head – eyes, ears and teeth.”

He leaves many communities better for having known him, among them West Point, New York which he frequently revisited for research on his books; Colorado Springs, Colorado where many of his fondest memories remained; Carlisle, Pennsylvania where his legacy remains; and Tiburon/Belvedere, California where he could be seen daily until recently walking to his office with cane and pipe in hand. West Point, however, is the place he felt was his home, most recently returning to join his classmates for his 65^th Reunion in 2009. He will be buried there on the 19^th of January, with services to be held at the Cadet Chapel, the site of one of the many books he authored.

When asked what he would consider his greatest regret, he could think of but one: how he had wanted to earn the designation of Eagle Scout. Just one badge shy, he had recently asked the Boy Scouts of America if he might earn the last badge; they denied the request.

He lived with honor, with a long list of plans and goals, and with love in his heart from the many friends and family he has left behind.

Colonel Pappas was a colleague and friend to General Omar N. Bradley who once said, “Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”  When we gaze upon the stars, it is hard not to think of George and the course he set for himself, his family and all the people of the world he touched – we shall miss him very much.

- Mark Ginalski

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