The NPHS Reunion Essay: By Cesare Cardi, Class of 1968

Cesare and MaryAnn Cardi

Like most of those who have been gracious to share their stories, I feel blessed to have grown up in North Plainfield and gone to NPHS. I’ve got good memories like most, like time spent with those on our awesome soccer team, many personal hours with Albert T.; Kathy, my first real girlfriend; the high school dances; the guidance and love Mrs. Abrams had for all of us; and the life-changing support that Coach Rikstad gave me that got me to the Naval Academy followed by 31 years of active service to the Marines and another 15 years of educating the next generation of young Marines.  In June 2018, it will be 50 years since I first put on a military uniform and so, I figure it’s time to fully retire and do something else. I was remarried to MaryAnn in 2010 and baptized that same year. I have learned to live a life that honors my parents and God. I’m no fanatic. I’m still that young Italian boy, but with a fresh outlook on what’s important in life.

Like I was as a kid, I’m modest and hate the thought of someone thinking I was bragging but I think this blog is about catching up, and offering what we’ve done with our lives, so here it goes. I took my sweet time shedding the shenanigans of my youth at the Naval Academy and nearly got thrown out by my sophomore year, but with some rather firm guidance from my Marine Corps advisor, I made up lost ground in the last two years to finish with my honor intact J.  I joined the Marines instead of the Navy, because, frankly, I still could not swim well and wanted to be as far away from the water as possible. Little did I know that all major Marine Corps bases are near the ocean.  Well, I’m here to tell my story, so I survived drowning.  I chose the armor field and was a tank commander, leading organizations of five to 70 tanks. (Hey, I was just thinking that the last tank model I commanded of the three generations of tanks, was called the Abrams tank.  Maybe after Ethel?  Nah!) I had the opportunity with my assignments to be stationed in several continents and I don’t know how many countries. Sounds wonderful huh? Well, honestly, assignments such as Marines get don’t equate to cultural tours of wonderful places you see in National Geographic. As the leader of the free world, I don’t agree with Trump’s use of language, but there are SH’s on this planet and I’ve been to a half-dozen or more of them.  I fought in Desert Shield/Storm as an armor commander of 1500 men and tanks, and came out free of scars.  I’ve been involved in other operations in our southern hemisphere that have been ongoing since Reagan’s time or before that, and were very different than my experiences with tanks.  I helped close down our presence in Panama after we left between 1999 and 2002 and had the opportunity to be the mosquito on the wall when we planned and set up the containment facilities in Guantanamo. A short visit there in the early days was an eye-opening experience. I came to love education because I know for certain that it was the opportunities given to our family from this great country and the remarkable education I have been afforded from high school to college that have made me who I am and allowed me privileges that I would otherwise not have. So, I was also the Director (like a Chancellor) of a few of our military schools in between assignments with tank units.  After 31 years, I reached the maximum time in military service and had to retire from the military so I did not participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and operations in Afghanistan.  One of the coolest things that happened in my time was that the ship I was stationed on for nearly a year in the 70’s was sunk as a reef off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, and when my daughter went on a middle school trip in 2003, they snorkeled and organized dive on to the same ship I sailed on many years earlier. She even had a blurry photo shot of the ship with its name…..USS Spiegel Grove LSD 32.

I have (had) three wonderful children, Jason, now 42, Jaime Marie whom I lost to a car accident at the age of 16, and an awesome daughter Kathryn, whom we adopted at birth and is now 26 and recently married.  Between MaryAnn and me, we have three girls and one boy, and eight grandchildren living between Kentucky and Pennsylvania.  For now, we live in North Carolina since I’m still working but retirement will take us elsewhere.

Growing up as a child of the 60’s was no big deal to me.  The peace movement never got to NPHS and after graduation, I was shielded from all that by a military environment.  The closest I ever got to mimicking the social surroundings was when “Saturday Night Fever” came out, I figured I had to be as cool as Travolta so I invested in the clothes and danced like a fool J.  Great times frankly.  Wish I had pictures of me back then. It would make for a great laugh.

I’m not sure why I’ve stayed away from reunions. I haven’t attended those at the Academy either and am still unsure if I’ll get to our 50^th. I just recently re-connected with Albert after many-many years so I guess I’m just not great at keeping in touch. I don’t do social media either. Never had the time or inclination to put my life online but I do love interacting with people the old school way; face to face.  So even this writing is a stretch for me.   I’ll close by saying I have many of my classmates in my heart. Every 10 years or so I open my 1968 yearbook and think about the friendships.  I feel blessed that of all places we could have settled when we emigrated from Italy, we ended up in North Plainfield.  God Bless this country.