An Army general goes home to West Chester

When David M. Rodriguez was a senior at West Chester Henderson High School, one of his teachers wrote in a recommendation letter for West Point: "He has trouble responding to authority in school. But if you can break him of that, he will be an outstanding leader."

On Tuesday, with three stars glistening from each shoulder, the No. 2 American general in Afghanistan returned to his alma mater to be inducted into its hall of fame.

Rodriguez, 55, was honored as the superachiever he has become. He was also remembered as the ordinary kid he had seemed in 1972, when he was one of about 750 in his graduating class.

"He was a good student, not a great student," said his football coach, Mike Hancock, 71 and retired.

"His passion was sports," said a classmate, Gary Christy. "He wasn't necessarily the star. But he was a dependable teammate."

Such faint praise. But coming from the people who knew him back when, it was the highest sort of compliment. For, obviously, good ol' Dave - or "Rod," as he also was known in school - had more in him than anybody saw at the time.

This wasn't lost on the present-day Henderson students who attended the hall-of-fame ceremony in the auditorium.

"I learned you can overcome adversity," senior Hope Erving, 18, said afterward while walking to a class. "He said he was OK in school. You can do whatever you put your mind to."

When Rodriguez got out of high school, the U.S. military effort in Vietnam was near its nadir. Never before had so many American youth held the military in such low esteem.

But for Rodriguez, son of a steelworker, this was an opportunity. Asked in an interview Tuesday how he got into West Point with C's on his transcript, he shrugged and said:

"It was 1972. . . . I did good on tests."

It also no doubt helped that he was 6-foot-4, a 230-pound defensive end who was able to make the football team.

Now the father of an academy football player himself, Rodriguez has spent 38 years in the Army.

He has been commander of the elite 82d Airborne Division and was the senior adviser to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates when Gates appointed him last year to oversee day-to-day military operations in Afghanistan. Only four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal is over him there.

Grant Struble, 16, and Mike Cavuto, 17, juniors in the Henderson band, seemed charmed and inspired that Rodriguez was so repeatedly described from the stage as something less than a perfect student.

"He did a lot of the same activities we do, walked in the same hallways," Struble said.

Said Cavuto: "I think it just shows, no matter where you are now, you can end up at the top. You don't have to settle for subpar."

In his 1972 yearbook photo, Rodriguez is frozen as the 17-year-old he once was.

"Tall, shy, interested in all sports, college bound." That's what the Garnet and White had to say about him. "Football, baseball, intramural hockey."

The brown hair that poured over his forehead is going gray, and is now worn high and tight. He still has that square jaw.

"I always like to tell people," he noted in his award thank-you remarks, "that the only person who can make can't come true is you."

"You have to keep trying - grow and work and learn."