The end of the year is often a time for personal reflection and achievement but one Army couple visiting the Presidio of Monterey recently had over half a century of Army life, relocation, and experiences to look back on and commemorate their visit to the old Presidio chapel, overlooking the beautiful Monterey Bay, completed in 1941.
General Ronald H. Griffith and his wife Hurdis Griffith, returned to the Presidio of Monterey chapel to repeat their marriage vows 50 years and two days after they made the first trip down the aisle on 28 December, 1964.
Griffith went on to a storied Army career that took him from the jungles of Vietnam to Vice Chief of Staff of the Army at the Pentagon, the second highest military position within the Department of the Army. Prior to that, he was the Army's Inspector General, a position he held for four years. Griffith was the first Inspector General in the Army's history to be selected to wear four stars.
Griffith retired from the U.S. Army in November 1997 after nearly 37 years of active duty service.
His wife Dr. Hurdis Margaret Ann Griffith. Dr Griffith recently retired as the Dean of the College of Nursing at Rutgers University (now Dean Emeritus), the State University of New Jersey.
Army Chaplain Major Terry Cobban presided over the wedding and renewed the couple's vows after half a century of marriage at the Presidio of Monterey chapel thirty December 2014 in a brief ceremony while teary-eyed family members and friends snapped photos to record the occasion.
The couple married on the Presidio while Griffith was a language student studying German and French at the height of the Cold War. After a short, two days honeymoon, Griffith deployed to the Republic of Vietnam.
After the ceremony the couple was celebrated with cake and champagne by their family and friends at the nearby recently restored Weckerling Center, a historic Presidio structure which was itself built in 1901.
The Griffiths reside in Arlington, Virginia. They have two daughters, Leigh Ann Todd and Laura Thompson, and five grandchildren.
THE HISTORY OF THE PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY
The Presidio of Monterey was established near the site of captured El Castillo de Monterey in 1846 at the beginning of the Mexican War. Initially named Fort Stockton after Commodore Robert F. Stockton and renamed Fort Mervine after Navy Captain William Mervine who led the initial landing party which took and occupied the fort it was later named Fort Halleck for Lieutenant Henry W. Halleck the engineer charged with completing principal construction. Halleck later went on to become a senior Union Army commander in the Western Theater and then served for almost two years as general-in-chief of all U.S. armies during the American Civil War.
The Installation was abandoned between 1866 and later reactivated in 1902. In September of that year the 15th Infantry Regiment, which had fought in China and the Philippines, arrived in Monterey and began building the cantonment area around what is now known as Soldier Field.The installation was officially named Presidio of Monterey in 1904.
In 1946 the Military Intelligence Service Language School was moved from the Presidio of San Francisco to the Presidio of Monterey. Besides German, French and Italian it added Russian, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and six other languages to its curriculum, and was renamed the Army Language School in 1947. The size of the faculty and student classes and number of languages taught increased throughout the Cold War years.
Today the Presidio of Monterey is home to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) which was created in 1976 when military language instruction was merged and consolidated at the Presidio. The DLIFLC is regarded as one of the finest schools for foreign language instruction in the nation. Resident instruction is provided in 24 languages and several dialects, five days a week, seven hours per day, with two to three hours of homework each night. Courses last between 26 and 64 weeks.
Related Links:
Presidio of Monterey on Twitter
Presidio of Monterey on Facebook
Social Sharing