ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060038
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
In the annals of military history, few campaigns rival Harry Temple's diligent mission to recapture the story of Virginia Tech's Corps of Cadets.
After 23 years and countless hours of painstaking research, D-Day arrived last month as volume one of "The Bugle's Echo" rolled off the printing press.
"You can't imagine the feeling," said the conquering hero.
Lost facts and forgotten stories of old-time barracks days snap to attention within the 722 pages of Temple's book, which details the corps from 1872 to 1900.
It's merely the first in a series intended to occupy a total of six volumes, each book with about 200,000 words in its ranks.
Temple, a 1934 Tech graduate and a retired career military officer, began the project in 1973 with the same spirit as a soldier who seizes a falling banner. "The corps was VPI," he said of his long-gone era, when Virginia Polytechnic Institute was exclusively a young man's military school.
Many changes occurred during the intervening years. Compulsory membership in the corps ended in 1946. Women were admitted to the corps in 1972. By the time Temple launched "The Bugle's Echo," anti-military sentiment was high on Tech's campus and the corps' presence around the Drillfield was dwindling, along with its enrollment.
"I figured something should be done," Temple decided.
His one-man rally - originally intended produce a modest history of the corps after three or four years of research - mushroomed into something akin to a windmill-tilting obsession.
For years, Temple found himself haunting libraries and working at his desk through the wee hours, pursuing shards of information that might tell the corps' story.
The result, volume one, is a heavy tome, weighing 4.6 pounds and brimming with 365 photos and countless particulars of day-to-day 19th-century corps life. Undoubtedly it's the most extensive study ever written of Virginia Tech's early years.
"It's more detailed than the average history book would be," Temple cautioned. "I wanted it to be a reference book. You may find yourself in more detail than you want to be."
Accordingly, "The Bugle's Echo" has been exclusively issued. Only 1,000 copies were printed and each costs $100. The average reader will probably have to visit a library to see a copy.
However, Temple said he won't make a penny off the book's sale. Any profit generated will be applied to the publication of the series' next book.
To date about 250 have been sold, mostly to corps alumni who financially underwrote volume one, which cost $43,000 to print. The author estimates he's sunk about $25,000 of his own money into the project.
There's absolutely no way to quantify the effort Temple expended as he squinted at microfilm, wrote letters, made telephone calls, conducted interviews, pursued copies of old photographs and wrote the manuscript of "The Bugle's Echo" in longhand script.
He admits there were times along the way when the idea of publishing the book seemed more a fantasy than a reality.
His fellow corps alumni were strong boosters of the project, sharing his emotional attachment to the corps and opening their checkbooks to support the book. Temple salutes them in the book's dedication, and credits Henry Dekker of Blacksburg with leading the charge for "The Bugle's Echo."
The author calls the final product "first-rate." He is especially proud of the book's 41 colorful illustrations that chronicle the changes in the corps' uniforms and insignias. Military symbolism is of great interest to Temple, who once headed the U.S. Army's institute of heraldry and designed the original Presidential Medal of Freedom in the 1960s.
Now he's focused on volume two. "I'm ready to go to press, if and when we get the money," he said.
The next book will cover the corps from 1900-12 and each succeeding volume will be just as thick as the original. More readily available research material means fewer years can be covered in the 200,000 words he's allowed per book, Temple said.
The hardest part, Temple said, is deciding what to leave out. "That's heart-rending."
His plan is to carry the series through 1934, the year he graduated. If the money flows and his health holds out, Temple may carry "The Bugle's Echo" up to 1946, the post-World War II year compulsory corps membership ended and Tech's modern civilian era began.
Lanky and vigorous at age 84, Temple vows to see the series through. Still, he's already arranged to turn his research notes over to a younger corps graduate, should taps sound for Temple before all six volumes are published.
"I want to get as much done as I can," he said. "There's no tonic more wholesome than success."
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. File 1996. The Virginia Tech Corp of Cadets, in theirby CNBpresent day dress uniforms (above), at Change of Command Ceremony in
April. 2. The original Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College
cadet uniform of 1872 (below) was a dress gray modeled after
soldiers of the Confederate army. The drawing also depicts the
original Preston and Olin Institute building in the background.
(Illustration by Floyd Richard Vranian, from the book "The Bugle's
Echo", Volume 1.) 3. ALAN KIM/Staff. Harry Temple's book, "The
Bugle's Echo," details the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets from 1872
to 1900. color.