November 7, 2025 was a historic day at Pingry—and a profoundly moving day in two parts.
Veterans Wall
Taking place first, in an Upper School wing by the History Department, was “one of the most important dedication ceremonies that’s ever taken place on a Pingry campus,” said Head of School Tim Lear, as the School dedicated the new Veterans Wall that currently memorializes 1,051 members of the Pingry community, including 13 faculty and staff, who answered the call of military service. The list is organized by class, and alphabetical within each class. Names embossed in gold are those who were killed in action. The oldest known veteran is from the Class of 1876; the youngest is from the Class of 2019. And the list will keep growing, as the School is notified about others’ service and as more students pursue military service.
Among the approximately 50 guests at the ceremony: retired U.S. Army four-star General Stanley McChrystal, a 1976 graduate of West Point with 34 years of distinguished service to the nation. He served as Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, and as Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, responsible in the latter role for 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. General McChrystal received some of the country’s highest military honors and more recently is author of two books: Risk: A User’s Guide and On Character: Choices that Define a Life. His wife Annie attended the ceremony as well, a reminder of and a tribute to the sacrifices of military spouses and military families. As Mr. Lear noted, there is “a family behind every name on the wall.”
What is also notable about the date of Friday’s ceremony and General McChrystal’s visit is that it was exactly 80 years to the day, November 7, 1945, since Admiral “Bull” Halsey, Class of 1900, visited Pingry’s Parker Road Campus during Halsey Day in Elizabeth.
In conjunction with this year’s 100th anniversary of the Honor Code, Mr. Lear said, “It should be especially meaningful to all of us that this Veterans Wall is now an enduring symbol of what Pingry has stood for since 1861: the pursuit of excellence, the development of character, and a commitment to making a difference for others.” Another connection exists between this Veterans Wall and the Honor Code: both exist because of students. The Honor Code was written by students, and the names on the wall were researched during the ISP (Independent Senior Project) of four members of the Class of 2022: Jack Martin (who co-founded Pingry’s Veteran Affairs Club in 2020-21), Logan Bartels, Sean O’Keefe, and Julia Saksena, along with assistance from their classmate Ben Strasser. Their ISP research found more than 700 of the names on the wall, and they chose June 6, the anniversary of D-Day, to give the list to Pingry.
English Teacher Dr. Barrett Ward, a U.S. Army Officer for nearly 14 years who mentored the ISP, also spoke at the ceremony. He related how, in 2020, Special Assistant to the Head of School Miller Bugliari ’52, upon learning that Dr. Ward is a veteran, told him that he wanted the School to create a plaque or wall to honor every single one of Pingry’s veterans. “Having only recently left the military, [I knew that] when the senior-most faculty member at Pingry gives you a task, you say, ‘Yes, Sir.’” Thus began a collaboration of Development, Operations, Facilities, Archives, and these students who compiled the master list because, Dr. Ward said, “they have a deep respect and love for our nation and its veterans”. One of the students is the niece of Bill Little ’64, who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was killed in action. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor in combat. Four of the students are also on their journey to become Army and Marine Corps officers.
Dr. Ward also shared the story of Major James T. Egan ’60, USMC, whose remains have never been recovered from Vietnam. He was likely taken into captivity by the enemy and was reportedly seen by other prisoners of war as he moved between POW camps, but he “ultimately was never seen again. His mother went to Vietnam three times to try to find him.” She never stopped searching and even wrote to him weekly, but none of the letters were answered. His mother became a leader of the New Jersey chapter of the National League of Families of Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (known today as the National League of POW/MIA Families) and, in 1971, met with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, George H.W. Bush, to present a petition calling for better treatment of prisoners.
Dr. Ward then introduced another veteran, Mr. Bugliari, who was a Middle School student at Pingry, in the front row, on Halsey Day. “The list before you is impressive—not just in size, but in history,” he said of the Veterans Wall, which includes his brother Joe Bugliari ’49. It includes “seniors who were drafted before they had a chance to graduate. We honor those who never returned home, such as Jim Egan and Bill Little.” An emotional Mr. Bugliari expressed his gratitude to those who made the wall a reality.
Along with the five students, others are to be credited and thanked for the Veterans Wall coming into existence: Dr. Barrett Ward, Miller Bugliari ’52, Honorary Trustee Steve Newhouse ’65, Trustee Maggie O’Toole ’05, Archivist Peter Blasevick, Director of Facilities Mike Waelz and the Facilities Team, and the generosity of Trustee Mike Nitabach ’84 and his wife Heather Cruz.
Veterans Day Assembly: Character
Taking place second was the Veterans Day Assembly featuring General McChrystal speaking about the importance of character. “This assembly is an important moment of reflection—an opportunity for us as a community and as individuals to pause and think more deeply about who we are and who we want to be, to think about the choices we make and about the consequences our actions have on others,” Mr. Lear said in his opening remarks.
Introducing General McChrystal was Anna Butrico Conti ’14, his former speechwriter, then his co-author (specifically, his first female co-author) of Risk: A User’s Guide. She calls him “one of the most influential people in my life.”
Ms. Conti noted the significance of this moment for her and for Pingry. “Pingry shaped my character…to do the right and honorable thing always, to never sacrifice my values for a chance at an easier road…I thank Pingry for showing me I could take on a project as big and challenging and amazing as a book. Both Pingry and General McChrystal have shaped my life and character in innumerable ways, so it is a true honor to bring them both together today.”
General McChrystal’s wide-ranging presentation touched on many topics and stories to emphasize character, starting with a story that changed his life. That’s because a 2010 Rolling Stone article titled “The Runaway General” would end his military career after 34 years. He didn’t think it was a fair or accurate story, but it didn’t matter because it put then-President Barack Obama in a difficult position because it looked like a general and his staff weren’t behaving properly. General McChrystal resigned.
“In an instant, I’m not a soldier. My life pivots,” he recalled. But he had a new beginning, and he and his wife decided to focus on the future. “I was going to try to conduct myself in a way that anyone who had never known me before, but had read that article, when they met me would say ‘that doesn’t seem like that person’. And anyone who had known me before and believed in me, would be reassured.” That attitude was based on his belief that “character—who we are—is what we do. It’s our fate—it defines us. When we are gone, the wake behind us will be the character we represented, and how it affected other people.”
His presentation included September 11, 2001—“you can think of the steel structure in the World Trade Center buildings like the character of a person or a nation”—and recent stories in the news about political violence. “There are days when I don’t feel like the character of our nation is what I hoped it would be, and what I believed it sometimes had been…We see the erosion of character, erosion of civility, erosion of trust. Discourse in America doesn’t reflect the kind of character that I wish it would.” He showed a photograph of a 70-foot-wide, Depression-era mural at West Point, depicting 20 instances of military history and leaders. “It’s easy for a cadet to think that this is history and inspiration and ‘maybe I might be on a mural like that someday.’ The reality is that you’re likely to be in Arlington Cemetery. To me, that would be just as much of an honor, to be lying next to people whose service and character I admire.”
What is his definition of “character"? It is a formula born from his engineer’s mind. “It’s the product of our convictions—our deeply held, pressure-tested beliefs—and the discipline to live up to them.” If we don’t adhere, true character is revealed. “Anything times zero is zero,” he said. “Often, we forget that the discipline is critical.”
He shared the story of a graduate from The Citadel who was on a January 1982 flight that took off from Washington, D.C. in the middle of winter. But the plane wasn’t properly deiced and couldn’t get altitude. It hit a bridge and killed six commuters, then went into the freezing river. Six people from the original 79 on board survived the initial crash and clung to the aircraft’s tail. A rescue helicopter dropped a cable, allowing one passenger at a time to climb up until five people had been saved. But the sixth passenger, Arland Williams of The Citadel, disappeared after helping the other five escape. His mother said he was “average.” General McChrystal said, “When it counted, he showed character.”
He shared the U.S. Army Rangers six-stanza creed, which every Ranger recites every morning. “It’s a promise that every Ranger makes to every other Ranger every day,” General McChrystal explained. One of the tenets: If you’re down, I will come get you. “It’s not whether you’re going to do it—it’s how you’re going to do it, and how quickly…I think this creed makes each Ranger stronger and braver because they don’t want to let anyone down.” At this, he compared the creed to the power of Pingry’s Honor Code: “You have made a promise.”
General McChrystal ended on big-picture topics, namely participating in democracy (only 65% of the population voted in the last presidential election), the strength of a nation, and the strength of a society. “The strength of a society is not defined by whether things get knocked down,” he said while showing a time-lapse video of the construction of One World Trade Center. “It’s defined by whether you can build them back up.”
And what to do about character, which he has seen lacking? “We need a national conversation on character—in schools, in churches, on teams, around dinner tables. And then we need to make a decision about character: what we want for ourselves, and for each other.”
Pictured: General Stanley McChrystal, Head of School Tim Lear, and Trustee Mike Nitabach ’84 with his wife Heather Cruz
As a further tribute to Veterans Day, read this letter from Head of School Tim Lear about Duane St. John ’50 (USMC, retired).
Contact: Greg Waxberg ’96, Assistant Director of Communications, Writer/Editor