President's Report - Gordon State College

19
President’s Report
An Original
Jo h n
Ed d y
has led an adventurous life
by Peter Boltz
“To be a Green Beret, you needed a pair of
aviator sunglasses, a Gerber knife, and a
copy of The Green Berets by Robin Moore
in your back pocket.”
You’re kidding, right
John Eddy just said, “Am I”
Eddy isn’t just some guy sitting outside his front door
under a shade tree jabbering about what is more accurately
known as the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. No,
John Eddy is a retired U.S. Army major and is what is popularly
known as a Green Beret. He also has a dry sense of humor,
which leaves his definition of a Green Beret up to interpretation,
although he admits to the sunglasses, the knife and the
book in his back pocket.
A native of Vero Beach, Fla., Eddy lives with his wife of 40
years, Judy, in the farm and pastureland that buffers the city.
And their house, their barn and their resident horses are hidden
away among the oaks and scrub of east central Florida. Sitting
underneath one of those oaks in his front yard, a visitor is likely
to feel well away from the surrounding frantic urban world. In
short, it’s peaceful.
A graduate of Gordon Military College in 1958, Eddy came
to the school as a high school junior. His father had died, and his
uncles sent him to a boarding school in Connecticut, an experiment
that failed by Christmastime. Back at home, he took to driving
his Model A on the beach, which, at the time, wasn’t illegal.
But speeding was, and this is what got him noticed by the police,
and this in turn got the notice of his mother.
“My mother had read about Gordon somewhere, and she decided
I needed to go there, because I was a little wild,” he said.
And she said, “You’re going.”
Eddy’s first impression of Col. C.T.B. Harris, the president
of the school, is still fresh and sounds as if a teenager is speaking.
“The first I saw of Gordon is when my mother took me to see Col.
Harris. Quite frankly, I was overwhelmed. He was quite a salesman
and believed in what he was selling. He felt I needed discipline,
which I would get at Gordon, along with a good education.”
His introduction to discipline often meant time on the bullring
and he freely admits he “wore out his shoes” there. Although
he yearned to be back with his friends in Vero Beach, he also felt a
curiosity for Gordon. How was it that a military school was coed
He also made friends at Gordon fairly quickly, with guys who
were like him. Larry Hughes was such a guy from Massachusetts.
“He was in the same boat as I was, except his family put him on