Man of Stone
This past weekend would've been my grandfather's 91st birthday so this week's post is all about him. George Tilden Stone, Jr. was born in a house that my great-grandfather had built with his own two hands (he himself was a master carpenter) in late March in 1927. Back in those days, DC was very different from the city it is today; most of the modern District of Columbia came about with the federal build-up from the New Deal and World War II launching the modern American military-industrial complex. As such, much of the city and the nearby Arlington where George largely grew up still heavily featured dirt roads and wooden buildings. When the Depression hit, his family was forced to move and most of his summers, George would live with family in Brooklyn becoming a dyed in the wool Dodgers fan as an immediate result. To the very end, the Dodgers would be his favorite sports team even decades after they moved from New York to Los Angeles. Back in Arlington, George worked as a iceman's delivery assistant taking orders around the neighborhood every Saturday morning and spend the rest of the day watching movies at the local cinema to escape what was really a chaotic household, the details of which better left unsaid but I definitely empathize with him all these decades later.
George was listening to a Redskins game when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was announced and shortly after becoming of age, he found himself in the Army. As a boy, what is now Ballston used to be where the military kept their cavalry and George and his friends used to peek over the fence to look at the horses. They swore when they grew up, they would each join the cavalry themselves but they were each drafted into a different branch but not my grandfather. George found himself in the [armored] cavalry; the first thing he ever learned to drive was a Sherman tank. On a technicality, he was the only one to live up to that childhood promise and he always got a kick out of that.
My grandfather didn't talk much about his time in the Army but I was able to glean details from him over the years:
George was listening to a Redskins game when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was announced and shortly after becoming of age, he found himself in the Army. As a boy, what is now Ballston used to be where the military kept their cavalry and George and his friends used to peek over the fence to look at the horses. They swore when they grew up, they would each join the cavalry themselves but they were each drafted into a different branch but not my grandfather. George found himself in the [armored] cavalry; the first thing he ever learned to drive was a Sherman tank. On a technicality, he was the only one to live up to that childhood promise and he always got a kick out of that.
My grandfather didn't talk much about his time in the Army but I was able to glean details from him over the years:
- an infantry machine gunner manning a Browning Automatic Rifle because of his size (When he joined the Army, he was 6' 3" and remarked that the second person to greet him in secondary school was the local basketball coach)
- he had a shoe blown off by a nearby exploding landmine which almost nearly cost him his foot and earned him his Purple Heart
- he taught me how to properly lob a hand grenade, about WWII era firearms, and how to pick locks which I personally hope to never employ but if I ever find myself in a Red Dawn situation with a Thompson submachine gun, I guess I'll be okay
- in the middle of training for the invasion of Japan, he learned the Japanese surrendered and credits Truman for saving his life; the 33rd president would be the only Democrat he would ever vote for
By the end of his time in the Army, George reached the rank of sergeant and would later decline an offer to re-enlist for the Korean War several years later, opting instead at the urging of his then-girlfriend (later wife and my future grandmother) Beth to attend college funded by the GI Bill. Ever a fan of the Appalachian, George and Beth went off to Carson-Newman College in middle of nowhere Tennessee where George earned his degree majoring in history and economics.
Upon returning to the DC-area, George became an analyst for the relatively newly formed CIA to wage the relatively newly begun Cold War. His first job was translating North African newspapers and communiques owing from learning French in college. Because of his prodigious memory, George’s section chief had him prepare notes for a public briefing with the director and, I shit you not, this is how the story goes (or at least how my grandfather told it): as soon as the chief took the podium, he dropped all the notecards George had prepared forcing my grandfather to take point entirely from memory. Impressed, the director promoted George to the head of imagery intelligence where he would analyze pictures taken from U2s (the spy plane, not the band) and SR-71s; later satellite imagery would fall under his purview.
For obvious reasons, I don't really know much about what he did working for the CIA for over four decades. I do know he was sent on assignment to Franco's Spain, Cold War Greece, and the Middle East shortly before the Yom Kippur War.
So that's ominous.
Anyway, George and Beth started their own family in Falls Church, a daughter and son both born shortly after he began at the CIA. Three decades later, his son would have a son and daughter of his own after following in his father's footsteps and joining the Army and getting stationed in Korea, the one country George declined traveling to.
I'm talking about myself here. This is where I come in so here's where the perspective shifts:
By the time I come online, my grandfather has shifted to working in an instructional capacity teaching the latest recruits into the American intelligence community including my father, the only person in my family to see the professionally clandestine George Stone. Might be a bit jealous by that. While George had planned a twilight career working at the Arlington Public Library he loved so much, he enjoyed retirement more and spent it with me and my sister. Every week he would take us to the monuments and the museums before we started going to school full time. Back at his home in Falls Church, he would let me peruse his personal library and teach me about military history in between watching old John Wayne westerns (He was never big on the revisionist stuff with Clint Eastwood as he felt it subverted the mythos of it all). When we were in the UK, he would take me to castles and cathedrals and everything in between all over the British Isles from the bustling streets of London to the atmospheric moors of Scotland.
Years of world travel and athletic injuries had taken their toll and he progressively started moving slower and slower. After Beth died right before I started grad school, he started moving a hell of a lot slower; his best friend for over sixty years suddenly gone. By then, he was living in an apartment in Springfield and I would drive out at least once a week to take him out to breakfast. He would call me at 5:30 every morning to make sure I was awake (I definitely was after he called) even though I wouldn't arrive for a couple hours later.
The love of travel and idea of being an international man of mystery? That comes from him. The notion of being so well-versed in the most random facts after years of growing up in libraries, bookstores, and museums? That comes from him. The deadpan, self-deprecating sense of humor? All from him.
I remember my grandfather being strong but not stern, serious when it mattered but certainly not all the time (his lessons about humility never quite took with me), someone that wanted us to never stop staying curious because the world was always going to be bigger and more interesting than us.
Every now and then, I still instinctively glance at my phone in the morning waiting for a call that will never come. He has been gone for years now and I miss him quite a bit but, at the end of the day, I'm happy I got to know him; my life is richer for it (And I wouldn't be here without him obviously).
Happy birthday, George.
Upon returning to the DC-area, George became an analyst for the relatively newly formed CIA to wage the relatively newly begun Cold War. His first job was translating North African newspapers and communiques owing from learning French in college. Because of his prodigious memory, George’s section chief had him prepare notes for a public briefing with the director and, I shit you not, this is how the story goes (or at least how my grandfather told it): as soon as the chief took the podium, he dropped all the notecards George had prepared forcing my grandfather to take point entirely from memory. Impressed, the director promoted George to the head of imagery intelligence where he would analyze pictures taken from U2s (the spy plane, not the band) and SR-71s; later satellite imagery would fall under his purview.
For obvious reasons, I don't really know much about what he did working for the CIA for over four decades. I do know he was sent on assignment to Franco's Spain, Cold War Greece, and the Middle East shortly before the Yom Kippur War.
So that's ominous.
Anyway, George and Beth started their own family in Falls Church, a daughter and son both born shortly after he began at the CIA. Three decades later, his son would have a son and daughter of his own after following in his father's footsteps and joining the Army and getting stationed in Korea, the one country George declined traveling to.
I'm talking about myself here. This is where I come in so here's where the perspective shifts:
By the time I come online, my grandfather has shifted to working in an instructional capacity teaching the latest recruits into the American intelligence community including my father, the only person in my family to see the professionally clandestine George Stone. Might be a bit jealous by that. While George had planned a twilight career working at the Arlington Public Library he loved so much, he enjoyed retirement more and spent it with me and my sister. Every week he would take us to the monuments and the museums before we started going to school full time. Back at his home in Falls Church, he would let me peruse his personal library and teach me about military history in between watching old John Wayne westerns (He was never big on the revisionist stuff with Clint Eastwood as he felt it subverted the mythos of it all). When we were in the UK, he would take me to castles and cathedrals and everything in between all over the British Isles from the bustling streets of London to the atmospheric moors of Scotland.
Years of world travel and athletic injuries had taken their toll and he progressively started moving slower and slower. After Beth died right before I started grad school, he started moving a hell of a lot slower; his best friend for over sixty years suddenly gone. By then, he was living in an apartment in Springfield and I would drive out at least once a week to take him out to breakfast. He would call me at 5:30 every morning to make sure I was awake (I definitely was after he called) even though I wouldn't arrive for a couple hours later.
The love of travel and idea of being an international man of mystery? That comes from him. The notion of being so well-versed in the most random facts after years of growing up in libraries, bookstores, and museums? That comes from him. The deadpan, self-deprecating sense of humor? All from him.
I remember my grandfather being strong but not stern, serious when it mattered but certainly not all the time (his lessons about humility never quite took with me), someone that wanted us to never stop staying curious because the world was always going to be bigger and more interesting than us.
Every now and then, I still instinctively glance at my phone in the morning waiting for a call that will never come. He has been gone for years now and I miss him quite a bit but, at the end of the day, I'm happy I got to know him; my life is richer for it (And I wouldn't be here without him obviously).
Happy birthday, George.
