He was born into the Army, he lived all his life in the Army, and he died in the Army. George grew up to the sound of bugles and cadence counted by clear-voiced drill sergeants. He heard the sounds of rifle fire on ranges, and blank rounds fired in the training areas. He and his younger brother Koy were constant companions. Together as toddlers they stood retreat, heard the cannon, lifted their short and pudgy arms in salute and watched the slow descent of their nation's flag.

 

They were frequently adopted by soldiers and became accustomed to the rough talk of the barracks. They loved to hear the exaggerated tales of the old sergeants and the good-natured banter of young lieutenants. George grew to love soldiers and he began to build a dream of being one and of leading men in battle.

 

As a boy he frequently visited his paternal grandparents in San Antonio. Each visit he begged to be taken to the Alamo and asked to be retold the story of the siege. He died 135 years to the day after the fall of the Alamo.

 

At the age of 10 he arrived at Fort Benning where we were assigned to the 15th Infantry. I see here one of my comrades-in-arms of the 15th, Colonel Paul Casper. On visiting the trophy room of the 15th Infantry George read a poem by some anonymous soldier. He was struck by the poem and this may have been the beginning of his interest in poetry.

 

George’s high school years were spent at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In his junior and senior years he started on both offense and defense of championship football teams. In his senior year his teammates elected him co-captain. On graduating in 1965, he won an academic scholarship to the University of Kansas and an appointment to the United States Military Academy by the Honorable Henry B. Gonzalez.

 

During high school his interest in poetry deepened. He was fond of the romantic and Victorian poets and he loved martial poetry.

 

He loved Kipling. He frequently prayed “Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet," from “Recessional." His favorite Kipling poem was “If.”

 

He read Alan Seegar. George was ready for his “rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade" or “in some flaming town.” And when spring came round this year, George did not fail that rendezvous.

 

He loved the poetry of A. E. Houseman. George also loved the poetry of Rupert Brooke who fell in France in World War I. George's favorite was “The Great Lover." "I have been so great a lover” and George was a great lover.

 

George also wrote poetry during his high school years. On the death of President Kennedy he wrote,

 

The country mourns the loss of a chief

It cannot console a widow in grief.

In the afternoon air a volley rings loud

For a casket adorned with a flag for a shroud,

She took the flag and lit the flame

That would made a grave with a president's name.

Now he’s gone, no more can be said

But the nation must go where he would have led.

 

At West Point George distinguished himself primarily by graduating. There are two century clubs at West Point. There is one for cadets who spent over a hundred hours walking the area for punishment, and there is one for cadets who spent over a hundred hours in confinement. George belonged to both. I asked why he was not pictured with the century clubs in the yearbook and he replied, “I was on confinement when the picture was taken."

 

George played 150-pound football until he literally outgrew it and then took up karate. He boxed intramurally and was heavyweight champion of his regiment.

 

On leave from the academy he loved to visit the coast. He loved salt water fishing and swimming in the surf. He wrote this poem he called "The Sea."

 

Listen to the sea—It roars like thunder.

Casts its foam on the land down under.

Eats away at sandy beaches;

Stretches on in endless reaches.

Heralds the sun by turning gold;

Metes out death to young and old.

Moves in tides pulled by the moon.

Tosses in throes of a dead typhoon.

Lies acalmed like a great blue bowl.

Breeds its children in swarming shoal.

Glimmers and glints with hidden treasure;

Wimpers in pain, sighs in pleasure;

Comes alive with swarming life.

Dooms its spawn to endless strife.

Climbs in waves eighty feet tall—

Listen to the sea and heed its call!

 

George's best friend and classmate at the Academy, Lieutenant Jeff Donaldson, wrote this about George in the yearbook. I abridge Jeff’s words slightly.

 

If ever there was a born infantry leader, it is George. George never has shown the academic departments the slightest mercy. Unfortunately worn-out shoe leather is not a criterion for cadet rank, otherwise he would be a member of the brigade staff. But if

professional soldiers are measured, George will be the first in our class to wear stars.

 

After graduation in 1969, George served at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg before going to Vietnam. In the basic course at Benning he was known to his classmates as “Sarge" because of his skill in the fundamental and practical aspects of soldiering.

 

George was a man of violence and he knew that violence is the essence of warfare. George was a violent warrior. He killed by rifle and he killed by knife. He did not apologize for killing. He was not ashamed of killing his enemies, my enemies, your enemies, and the enemies of all who think that self determination is a wonderful thing.

 

George was also a tender lover. He loved his family, his sweetheart, his nation, his comrades-in-arms, and he loved the United States Army.

 

In 1969 he wrote the following letter to his sister on her seventeenth birthday.

 

Dear Laurie,

 

Congratulations on having acquired the exhalted status of seventeen, a truly golden age about which poems are written and magazines named. Albeit my paltry pen lacks power to praise as is deserved, let me add a few feeble phrases to the legion of truly magnificent odes that adom the vision of heauty, calm and couth which is your hair. I think that ears have yet to hear a sweeter symphony than floats naturally off your lips. Nor can heart have felt a gentler warmth than that which bespeaks itself in the manner of your loving, for you love with the openness of one much younger than your seventeen, and with the intensity of one much older.

 

A thoughtful gesture, a friendly smile, a considerate action, open arms, homeward turning lover—all these and more you are.

 

Therefore, my sister, while I have breath to speak or heart to give, let me pledge myself.

 

With Eternal Love, (S) Your Brother, George

 

George fell in love with Isabel Gibbons and planned to marry her on his return from the war. He wrote this poem to her. It is called

 

To Isabel

 

When your tender arms surround me,

When your lovely lips meet mine,

When your laughter rings out clearly, 

Like a glow lamp lit, I shine.

 

For we have touched the stars my love

And danced in the light of their fire,

In dizzying dreams of colored night 

We've swum the heights of desire.

 

Too we’ve loved on summer Sundays

When sea gulls wheeled the blue,

The warm baked earth reached up it’s arms

And joined in the love we knew.

 

Yes, we have sung the sky, my love

And laughed with the sea and wind.

For our love were all these lovely

And now all these must end.

 

God knows it were far better

To spend my days with you

But I serve a sterner mistress

To whom I will be true.

 

Oh, the Queen of battles beckons,

And I must heed her call 

To the land of flaming midnights

I go to fight and fall.

 

The war did not brutalize George. No one was ever brutalized by defending his country who was not a brute to begin with. After distinguishing himself in combat George was wounded in October, 1970, and was briefly hospitalized at Long Binh. This is part of a letter dated October 25th.

 

I have a new friend. His name is Jason Cleft. He is about 1 1/2 years old. A doctor took him out of a C.I.D.G. hospital. Jason is going to be operated on to close his cleft palate. Right now he is sitting between my legs sound asleep. I m teaching him to smile. I guess at the orphanage he doesn’t have much of an opportunity to leam. I take him for walks and everyone smiles. Jason hasn’t smiled yet but I have my hopes. He doesn’t have any toys. I got some blocks from a board game at the red cross and strung them together. Someone blew up a rubber glove and tied it with a string. It’s just as good as a balloon. I went to the P.X. but couldn’t find any toys. I did buy him a Christmas ornament shaped like a cloth bear beating a drum. It’s his favorite thing.

 

George was a skilled and competent leader of men in battle. Prior to his death he had been decorated with the silver star for gallantry in action, twice with the bronze star for valor, the Army Commendation Medal for valor and two Purple Hearts. I am told that he has been recommended for many other awards. In each engagement George and his unit held or captured the disputed ground and thus owned the field at the battle’s close.

 

He was ready to spend the lives of his subordinates but never needlessly. In November his first subordinate was killed in action. Sergeant Freddie Dacus was killed in a fierce action at Fire Support Base Pershing. George and his reinforced platoon, the 2d platoon of B Company inflicted a major defeat on a North Vietnamese Army unit. In this action the members of George’s platoon were awarded four Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars for valor, and ten Army Commendation Medals for valor.

 

On the 15th of November, two days after the action, George wrote about Freddie Dacus that which could now be written about George Bass. I quote from a letter from George:

 

"We held a memorial service for Sgt. Dacus today. I quoted Thomas Paine ’The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots.’ I said, ’Let none of us forget that our personal liberty and the liberty of free men everywhere was bought in part with the blood of Sgt. Freddie Dacus.’ Say a prayer for him, he may have saved my life and yours.

 

Love, George"

 

George was a gallant and competent professional soldier. He was a tender lover. He was literate, a reader and writer of poetry. He was a fierce and eager competitor. He died an early death, but a wonderful thing happened to him. His childhood dreams came true. He led men in battle and showed himself worthy of the comradeship of the noblest.

 

—Eulogy By His Father, LTC Koy M. Bass, USA Ret.

 

A soldier is gone from the rest of us now but only in body, for those of us who knew George shall never forget him. Embodied in this young man was an indomitable spirit that drove George through life and affected those around him. Although we remember many things about him, his laugh stands out in our minds for to us it represented his life style—loud, happy and unrestrained. The Army was George’s life, brought up as an officer's son, trained in the profession of a soldier, choosing to go to Southeast Asia because he felt he was needed there. He dedicated himself to a challenge confronting not only his contemporaries, but an entire nation, divided by conflicting ideas and beliefs, a nation in search of a catalytic consonance. George believed that strength, with compassion was that catalyst. He lived by that belief, being strong, yet responsive to the needs of others. He died responding to the challenge.

 

“...response, the will to respond, maybe a gritting of the teeth, to go just that much further, beyond the end beyond whatever ends: to begin, to be.’’

 

We have all lost a true friend, and for those who knew George personally, the loss is indeed a great one. There are ever-so-many things that one could use in trying to describe him but I feel the one that would please him the most is "a truly professional soldier.’’

 

To those of us who remain here to carry on the battle into which George threw himself with devoted passion—may we all leam from the fine example he set for us and we know his memory shall remain with us always.

 

Be Thou At Peace

 

Pete Dencker, Jeff Donaldson and Bob Allardice