The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
My March SoPrep Report promised future dispatches I pray would do justice w.r.t. past graduates and former cadets of the Academy who served, sacrificed and died serving in our nation's military. This is the first on SFC James Leslie Moreland. Southern Preparatory Academy, one of a dozen remaining prep schools in the nation with a Corps of Cadets (military) program, sits at Camp Hill just off US Hwy 280 in East Central Alabama... on the same hallowed grounds bearing Lyman Ward Military Academy [LWMA] nomenclature where a boy named James marched. After 43 years listed among the missing in Vietnam, James L. Moreland came home.
Born in Bessemer [September 29, 1945] his family sent him to Lyman Ward for his eighth and ninth grade years at Camp Hill. James did not graduate from the Academy. His family moved to Anaheim, California, where he became an all-county football player. Lyman Ward didn’t award a diploma for those two years, yet still implanted a foundation… ordinary discipline of marching, studying, and answering for oneself the Academy is designed to instill with careful empathy generation to generation. ‘Service before self’ is a challenging lesson to imbue a fourteen year old. Observation confirms James embraced this noble ethos.
Moreland entered the United States Army [1965] a volunteer for one of the hardest paths open to him, Special Forces, Green Berets. He also trained as a medic, a distinction worthy of note. A medic carries a weapon into the same danger as fellow soldiers, yet also displays a calling is to preserve; to reach wounded and comfort the suffering under fire. SFC Moreland is remembered for his courage. May he be remembered just as much as a healer.
On the night of February 6-7, 1968 the Special Forces Camp at Lang Vei (near the Laotian border) came under massive NVA assault supported by tanks, one of the defining engagements US soldiers endured in Vietnam. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, Moreland repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to reach wounded soldiers, treat them and strengthen the failing defenses. For those actions he was awarded the Silver Star. The camp fell, Moreland’s body was not recovered in the chaos, thus James Leslie Moreland became one of our Vietnam MIA’s.
Forty-three years is a simple number to type, yet impossible to describe in perspective. Children became grandparents, more undeclared conflicts began and ended as generations of cadets crossed the same parade ground never knowing his name. His family did not forget as well as strangers. A twelve year old girl named Kathy Strong received a stainless steel POW/MIA bracelet [1972] bearing his name and made a simple promise to wear it until he came home. One of the many things I recall upon first meeting my bride Theresa is donning her bracelet [SFC Randall S. Ellis - 18 April 1969] as a bank teller in Clemson. Kathy kept her MIA bracelet for nearly 40 years, which is what fidelity looks like when called to outlast the zeitgeist. https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000000tTBIkEAO. Through painstaking archaeological recovery, forensic anthropology and DNA analysis, Moreland’s remains were identified in 2010. SFC James L. Moreland was buried [May 2011, https://www.al.com/spotnews/2011/02/green_beret_james_leslie_morel.html]with full military honors in Bibb County, Alabama. At his funeral Kathy Strong removed the bracelet worn since childhood and placed it upon his uniform.
Moreland not graduating at SoPrep/LWMA is indeed accurate but may deter from the substance of this Report. James walked the grounds, shared their discipline and became an integral part of SoPrep’s living history; institutions worthy of respect also remember non-graduates. They remember all (donors, faculty, students, etc.)whose life became intertwined with their own from the Southern Industrial Institute’s humble inception. SFC Moreland’s place in the fabric of Lyman Ward/Southern Preparatory Academy, carrying that righteous legacy forward, was never lost, only waiting for each generation to step up in the circumstances of their era. Many call the WWII soldiers 'the greatest generation,' yet I have long thought those who served under misguided, undeclared engagements such as Vietnam were perhaps greater still under the deleterious time thrust upon them. Moreland went where sent, healed whom he could and gave everything at a border most can not find on a map. Cadets that Col. Ramsby now shepherds through SoPrep's rebuild today, who stand upon venerated shoulders like Moreland’s, inherit the honourable tradition they did not build but come to cherish and respect as they become a part of the tapestry.
Getting through SoPrep’s difficult transition in the Spirit of the winter endured at Valley Forge grows more promising each day and a cadet brought home after 43 years is a reminder of what endurance sows. A crucial moment of great suffering and sacrifice, many historians consider Valley Forge the birth of our professional military which morphed into a force stronger and united to defeat the greatest military of the era to repulse hegemonic mercantilism, sucking the marrow out of a people longing for liberty.
The Southern continues that Spirit of sacrifice… striving to regain and maintain Liberty by teaching our youth well with our support. Alabama Gazette readers include many who venerate our veterans and military history, filled with honour and sacrifice. Southern Preparatory Academy is a way to support future generations by donating money, time and even getting children and grandchildren to consider attending SoPrep; gifts can be made at https://southernprepacademy.org/giving-funds.
Until every missing service member is accounted for, until every family receives every answer that can still be found, our stewardship continues. James Leslie Moreland came home. May those still missing, one day do the same; may every cadet who follows understand they do not walk these sacred grounds alone, Deo volente.
In closing, I’m ‘going long’ as this is the first of profiles in memoriam to former Cadets MIA, KIA, or sacrificed their lives in US military service. Please read below what some SoPrep alums submitted for this Report:
The Test of Time
Some homecomings take days; others take weeks.
Some take years…and then there are those which require generations.
Sgt. 1st Class James Leslie Moreland’s homecoming required 43 years.
It required the faith of a family which never surrendered hope.
It required devotion of fellow soldiers who refused to let his sacrifice disappear into history.
It required scientists, archaeologists, forensic specialists, historians and countless true public servants committed to accounting for America’s missing.
Most of all, it required a nation committed to one who gives everything in service to others will never be forgotten.
The story of James Moreland is part of the Lyman Ward Military Academy legacy and ultimately, a story of stewardship.
A Young Cadet
Before he became a Green Beret…
Before he became a medic…
Before he became a Silver Star recipient…
Before he became one of the US Army’s Missing… James Leslie Moreland was simply a young boy.
Born on September 29, 1945 [Bessemer, Alabama] James spent his early years in the Birmingham and Selma areas before attending Lyman Ward Military Academy in Camp Hill for his eighth and ninth-grade years.
Like thousands who passed through the academy, he entered as a boy.
James learned within an institution, whose purpose extended far beyond academics.
LWMA sought to cultivate discipline without cruelty; leadership without arrogance.
Faith without pretense.
Responsibility without excuse; service before self.
Cadets learned to march together; to study together.
To worship together; to succeed together.
… and yes, to fail together.
They matured and learned individual achievement mattered, but never apart from the welfare of the whole… a lesson that remained with James Moreland long after departing the Academy.
Life Happens
The Moreland story was unfolding; his future appeared wide open.
History, however, had other plans, specifically the Call to Serve
In 1965, James Moreland was a rare volunteer in the US Army, choosing one of the most challenging courses; Army Special Forces, Green Berets.
He trained as a combat soldier and a medic;
That distinction is illustrative of this exceptional young man.
A medic enters danger carrying weapons, but his first instinct is not to destroy life.
His calling is to preserve life; to reach the wounded; comfort the suffering; save whoever can still be saved.
Even amid war, his vocation remains healing.
That reality reveals something profound about James Moreland’s character.
The historical record remembers extraordinary courage; the Stewardship Lens also sees extraordinary compassion.
The Lang Vei Story
On the night of February 6–7, 1968 everything changed.
The Special Forces camp at Lang Vei, near the Laotian border, suffered a massive assault by North Vietnamese forces supported by tanks.
The battle became one of the defining engagements of the Vietnam War.
Outnumbered.
Overwhelmed.
Subjected to relentless mortar, machine-gun fire and armored attack.
James Moreland repeatedly put himself in harm’s way to reach wounded soldiers, provide medical care and strengthen defensive positions.
Historical Recognition of Valour
For those actions at Lang Vei, Moreland was awarded the Silver Star.
History records his heroism; history also records his disappearance.
The camp fell; chaos consumed the battlefield.
His remains could not be recovered.
James Leslie Moreland became one of America’s Missing.
Forty-Three Years
Those words are easy to read…Forty-three years.
They are impossible to fully comprehend.
Children became parents; Parents became grandparents.
Presidents came and went as wars began; wars ended.
Technology transformed the world as LWMA navigated new chapters of its own history.
Generations of cadets marched across the same parade grounds where James Moreland had once marched as a boy.
Many never knew Moreland’s name, nonetheless his story continued.
His family remembered.
His fellow soldiers remembered.
His classmates remembered.
The Nation Remembered
In 1972, twelve-year-old Kathy Strong accepted a stainless-steel POW/MIA bracelet bearing James Moreland’s name.
She made a simple promise.
Kathy would wear the bracelet until Moreland came home.
A promise she kept for nearly forty years.
That promise itself became an act of stewardship.
It reminds us remembrance is not passive; it is active fidelity.
Moreland Found!
Eventually science accomplished what decades of uncertainty could not.
Through painstaking archaeological recovery, forensic anthropology, and DNA analysis, James Moreland’s remains were identified in 2010.
Perhaps no sentence carries greater hope than these words:
We found him.
Not because war had been undone.
It never can be…
But because love had endured longer than loss.
Faithfulness had endured longer than silence.
The missing had become accounted for.
In May 2011, Sgt. 1st Class James Leslie Moreland was buried with full military honors in Bibb County, Alabama.
At his funeral, Kathy Strong finally fulfilled the promise she had made as a child.
She removed the bracelet she had worn for nearly four decades and placed it upon his uniform.
Promises matter.
Institutions matter.
Memory matters.
An Academy Remembers
James Moreland did not graduate from Lyman Ward Military Academy.
That fact is historically accurate.
It is also historically incomplete.
He belonged.
He walked the sacred grounds.
He learned within this community.
He shared and embraced its discipline.
He shared its formation.
He became part of its living history.
Institutions worthy of respect do not remember only graduates.
They remember everyone whose life became intertwined with their own.
For that reason, James Moreland belongs forever within the story of LWMA and its continuing legacy through Southern Preparatory Academy.
His place was never lost… only waiting.
Stewardship
The Stewardship ‘ecosystem’ teaches stewardship is not something we invent.
It is something we inherit.
We receive it.
We exercise it.
We pass it forward.
That truth is beautifully illustrated by James Moreland’s life.
His family stewarded his memory.
His fellow soldiers stewarded his honor.
Scientists stewarded the search.
Historians stewarded the record.
The military stewarded its promise to account for their missing.
The academy now stewards his legacy.
And we, who tell his story today, become stewards as well.
An institution is not merely its campus.
It is also in this living ecosystem.
Its founders become its roots.
Its faculty become its cultivators.
Its commanders become its guardians.
Its alumni become its branches reaching into every profession and every community.
Its cadets become the living current carrying its values into the future.
Swords and Plowshares
Some of those lives enter classrooms.
Some enter churches.
Some enter farms.
Some enter hospitals.
Some enter courtrooms.
Some enter laboratories.
Some enter battlefields.
Everywhere they go, they carry something of the institution that helped shape them.
When one life is lost, the whole ecosystem feels the wound.
When one life is remembered, the whole ecosystem is strengthened.
Standing on Their Shoulders
Most of us never knew James Moreland personally.
We never marched beside him.
We never shared a classroom.
We never heard his voice.
Many of us were born long after his death.
Yet we know him.
We know him because faithful people refused to allow his name to disappear.
Every cadet who walks SoPrep grounds today inherits something from those who walked before.
We stand upon foundations we did not build.
We inherit traditions we did not create.
We benefit from sacrifices we did not personally bear.
James Moreland is one of those shoulders upon which we stand.
Not because he sought recognition.
But because he lived a life worthy of remembrance.
His story now belongs to every cadet who will ever pass through these gates.
Our Covenant
War takes much from humanity.
It takes sons from mothers.
Daughters from fathers.
Friends from one another.
It leaves empty chairs.
Unfinished conversations.
Birthdays marked by absence.
Names spoken softly.
Yet war cannot take everything.
It cannot destroy love which remains faithful.
It cannot erase character once formed.
It cannot silence a life that continues to inspire generations yet unborn.
Sgt. 1st Class James Leslie Moreland still teaches us.
He teaches us that courage often looks like compassion.
That service is greater than self.
That healing remains sacred even in the midst of violence.
That no one who gives everything for others should ever be abandoned to history.
Today we bring James Moreland home once more - not only to Alabama, where he rests among family, but also to the living memory of LWMA and to its continuing legacy through Southern Preparatory Academy.
Here his story will continue to instruct.
Here future cadets will learn his name.
Here generations yet unborn will discover that they are not beginning the story.
They are joining it.
Eternal Memory
This memorial is therefore dedicated not only to James Moreland, but to every cadet and former cadet of LWMA who answered our nation’s call to service; to those who were killed in action; to those who were listed as missing in action; to those who returned carrying visible and invisible wounds; to every family who waited with hope, courage, and love.
Until every missing service member is accounted for…
Until every family receives every answer that can still be found…
Until every name is remembered with gratitude…
Our stewardship continues.
James Leslie Moreland came home.
May all who sacrificed in service to our nation be remembered with honor.
May those still missing one day come home.
And may every cadet who follows understand they do not walk these grounds alone.
We walk with those who came before us.
Their stories march with us still.
The Greeks say, “Eonia imnemi”abbrv. for “May one’s memory be eternal through Christ.” SoPrep champions excellence in mind, body and Spirit. No doubt SFC James Leslie Moreland showed a Spirit in keeping with Jesus’ example worthy of remembrance.
John Sophocleus is a retired Ford Motor Company Warranty and Policy Administrator, Auburn Instructor of Economics [Ret. 2019] and Alabama Gazette columnist since 2009.
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Alabama Gazette staff or publishers.
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