Franklin Moon Obituary

Moon
FRANKLIN "FRANK" B. MOON
August 14, 1922 November 3, 2019
Franklin ("Frank") Boyd Moon (Cullum #14000) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on August 14, 1922 to Frank B. and Nellie (Crane) Moon. The family resided in the small farming community of Gillett, Arkansas, where they were engaged in rice and soy bean farming and in cattle raising. Frank graduated from the local high school in 1938. While seeking admission to West Point, he attended Kemper Military School for one year and the University of Arkansas for two years, where he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
Frank entered West Point on July 1, 1941, and graduated with the D-Day class on June 6, 1944, receiving his commission in the Corps of Engineers. A few weeks later, he met Joan Louise Heyer of New York City on a blind date. A fast-moving courtship ensued and on October 3, 1944, they were married at St Helena's Roman Catholic Church in New York. After a brief en-route honeymoon, Frank reported to the 1290th Engineer Combat Battalion at Camp Robinson, Arkansas, where he was assigned as a combat platoon commander. Within six weeks their life together was interrupted when the battalion was deployed to the European Theater of Operations (ETO). Upon Frank's return to the USA in early 1947, Joan and Frank began to plan their family, a plan which eventually resulted in the birth of five children - over a fifteen year span - Diana, Kathleen, Frank, David and Maureen.
As Frank's military career progressed he served in England, France, Germany, The Philippines, Yugoslavia, Vietnam and Thailand, graduated from the Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College and earned a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Harvard University. He considered it most fortunate that he was favored with numerous command assignments at the platoon, company, battalion, and regimental levels. He felt that the most rewarding of all was the command of the special task force ("Operation Home Run"), consisting of some seven hundred US Army and local personnel, which participated in earthquake disaster relief work in Skopje, Macedonia, during the fall and winter of 1963-64. His final military assignment was as commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers District, Galveston, taking military retirement in July of 1970.
Immediately thereafter Frank entered into civilian employment with the engineering, architectural and planning firm of Bernard Johnson Inc of Houston. He remained with the company for twenty-six years, retiring in 1996 as Senior Vice President and partner. In 2001 he and Joan moved (for the last of many times) to Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Frank was an avid reader, golfer, and tennis player, and he and Joan engaged extensively and enthusiastically in both domestic and foreign travel during his military career and for some forty years thereafter.
Frank passed away in Colorado Springs on Sunday, 03 November 2019. He was preceded in death by Joan, his wife of 73 years in May of last year, by his daughter, Kathleen Moon, by son-in-law, Christopher Hylton (Diana's husband) and by grandson, Kevin Hylton. He is survived by four of his children, seven grandchildren, one great grandson and by several family spouses. After cremation part of his ashes will rest on a mountain slope in Evergreen, Colorado with those of Chris and Kevin, and a portion to be placed at the graves of his mother and father in Gillett, Arkansas. The remainder will lie beside his wife Joan in Fort Logan Cemetery in Denver, Colorado