Looking back at his career, Robert J. Milmore was philosophical. “I was everything a little boy would want to be,” he said, “a cop, a fireman and a soldier.”
He was a firefighter for Rescue Company 5 in New York City. And more recently he was a federal police officer for the Veterans Administration at Castle Point.
But it was his career in the military that attracted his son. “As long as I can remember,” the younger Robert said during a recent interview, “it was what I really wanted.”
And he didn’t keep it a secret. He would share his aspirations with his family any time his father came home with friends in uniform.
“Once he mentioned his interest,” his father recalled, “I told him that the best thing to do was to try to enter the service through West Point.”
They looked into the prerequisites. And, at the same time, West Point was noticing young Mr. Milmore’s ability on the baseball field. Cornwall’s high school was on Main Street in those days, just a short walk from NYMA.
As 10th-graders, Rob and his friend Pat McGorman would leave school before lunch and head to NYMA for the junior ROTC program with Lt. Col. Robert Brand.
At the end of the year, they transferred to the military school as day students, commuting to class every morning and returning home at night. Rob and his father agreed that it was a good move. “We owe a lot to NYMA and Lt. Col. Brand,” they said. “There wasn’t a stone he left unturned.”
Both young men were accepted into West Point. Rob played baseball for a while, and then gave it up to concentrate on academics and his military training. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 2005, and served with the Rangers and the 101st Airborne.
After his enlistment was over, he became a civilian but not for long. “I left active duty, but I didn’t want to hang up my uniform yet,” he explained. So he joined the reserves, and was recently promoted to major. As part of his current assignment, he is training cadets at the United States Military Academy.
“I plan to stay in for as long as I can,” he promised last week. His father is now retired after 32 years in service. “It was a good career,” he said.
