Remembering Jon Reynolds
by Donald M. Bishop, ’67
Although he graduated ahead of me – he was in the Class of 1959 and I was in the Class of 1967 – Jon Reynolds and I both received Air Force commissions through Trinity’s Air Force ROTC unit. He was shot down over North Vietnam when I was still at the college, and I followed his time as a POW through Trinity’s alumni magazine. I was serving in Korea when he was freed, and a few years later our separate paths in the Air Force met at the Air Force Academy’s Department of History.
Jon had been an engineering major at Trinity. On his release, the Air Force Personnel Center asked each returned POW what assignment they wanted. Jon, a little to their surprise, I’m sure, told them that after seven years in Hanoi he wanted to study history and teach at the Academy. The wand waved, and he was sent to Duke University for a Ph.D. His dissertation on the early career of General Hoyt Vandenberg, who served as the Air Force’s Chief of Staff from 1948 to 1963, is still a cornerstone reference in understanding the development of air power and Air Force history.
Arriving in Colorado in 1975, Jon joined the 30-strong faculty in the Department of History. (Worth noting is that members of that Department included three Trinity grads – David MacIsaac ’57, Jon, and me – a fine showing for a liberal arts college.) In the Department Jon taught the core introductory courses in world history and military history. He chaired courses, graded exams and papers, and advised cadets. He became the Director for Military History, leading more junior “trenchers” like me. Jon also taught the upper division course in Unconventional Warfare, and his searching mind reshaped it to include the most recent scholarship – from those who supported and those who opposed and those who analyzed – the war in Vietnam. Along the way, all his cadets learned something about enduring misfortune, hardship, and pain – and about fidelity – as officers.
Jon didn’t say much about his years in North Vietnam, and when he did it was low-key. I do recall, though, that he once told me he had read a speech by retired Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his steadfastness and leadership as a POW. Jon and the future admiral had shared adjacent cells. They communicated in whispers, but Stockdale noticed that Jon was visited by the North Vietnamese guards a few times each day. It was because both of Jon’s shoulders had been broken when he ejected, and the guards had to feed him. That Jon never mentioned this additional suffering to Stockdale made him a hero in Stockdale’s estimate. Those years later at the Academy, Jon said, “if you’re the personal hero of someone who received the Medal of Honor – that’s something.”
Both of us also spent some summer weeks at Jack’s Valley, in the wooded area of the Academy reservation, as new cadets spent time in the pine scrubs, in tents, on marches, and running the bayonet course. In the valley, Jon also joined the training of upper class cadets on SERE – Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.
Jon saw that one cadet, recently “captured” by other cadets in Soviet uniforms, took his lead from John Wayne, defiantly pushing back against every insult and punishment. Jon called “Time Out.” He said to the cadet, “think about this carefully. They have all the high cards, and you have none. This is a time for you to keep your cool.”
Jon left the Academy for a celebrated career in Washington, in Beijing as Air and Defense Attache. It was a time when U.S. policy toward China was guided by the concept of “engagement,” and Jon and Emilee often hosted senior Chinese military leaders in their quarters. After China, Jon led the attache program at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Another career with Raytheon followed, and I was a Foreign Service Officer at the American Embassy in Beijing for some of those years. Raytheon’s China office, headed by Jon, negotiated and sold air traffic control systems for regional Chinese airports. As China’s economy boomed, so did air travel. As airlines were launched and expanded, the older air traffic control systems, designed in a time of limited air travel, had to be replaced, and Raytheon could provide advanced technology. This meant more than offering solutions; working with Chinese officials required its own diplomacy.
Jon had returned to the U.S. after he retired from Raytheon in 2000, but in 2005 – the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Japan – he was invited to China by the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation to join a group of American veterans who had served there during the Second World War. These men – Doolittle raiders, Flying Tigers, and Hump pilots among them – had been our heroes when we were boys. It was wonderful to meet them.
As the American Embassy’s Country Public Affairs Officer, I too joined the group visiting Beijing and Kunming in Yunnan Province. We were both on the stage at the site of General Chennault’s former headquarters in Kunming as the Chinese government provided one of the stone rollers that had been used when runways were constructed or improved during the war. And we were both on the front page of the China Times.
But there’s one more Academy story to tell. After the Gulf War, Jon was surprised to receive a letter from that former cadet he counseled to keep cool, Tom Griffith of the Class of 1979. He had been shot down in the Gulf War, and as the Iraqis took him prisoner, he remembered and followed Jon’s advice. Not many teachers hear from any of their former students, let alone hear that a lesson was remembered.
So when I think about Jon Reynolds – officer, pilot, warrior, historian, teacher, leader, and diplomat – I know his influence reached far beyond the classrooms where we first met.
Donald Bishop of Trinity’s Class of 1967 was an Air Force ROTC cadet at Trinity, and in the Air Force he served in Vietnam, Korea, and on the faculty of the Air Force Academy, teaching history. Afterwards, he spent a 31-year career in the Foreign Service, including two assignments in Beijing.