Donald W Malson
Secretary General of the MLAIC
Chairman of the USIMLC
53 years in the N-SSA
Over 30 years leading the USIMLT,
A life time
World Class competitor:
"Bucky" passed away at age 70
on
May 9 2007
-
"BUCKY"
We all know Bucky built the USIMLT. That he pulled people into the Team, put them to work, helped them to win, and got them to go all over the world doing it. What people don't know much about, and never will, is how he and Nancy learned to handle the endless problems they met
along the way. How they turned the problems and "situations" into adventures and made the stories of them into...a treasure. Gold coins of memory to be gathered, hoarded...
Anyone who shared what they DID, needs a treasure chest for those memories. And probably helped solve some of those problems even if they didn't quite know how they ended up being there, doing that.
It was simple. You didn't talk with Bucky without starting to care about things, and begin getting involved in them... He created, shared, an air of importance, fun, value, excitement, hope, and adventure with everyone he talked with about everything he talked about. It ranged from building a team to building a mansion. Going to Africa or a swampy farm in sweltering NJ. An artillery shell used as a dock piling or greasing a Minie. How to shoot Whitworth or scrounge something.
Endless tales... Treasures!
One of the first stories I heard back in 1980 or 81 was of driving across the veldt in a jeep chased by a mamba that not only kept up but was biting the jeep...and ending with a snake skin being worn as a cummerbund... True story. Way he told it, it HAD to be true!
In this day and age, extreme dedication to personal skills and total pursuit of objectives tends to be seen, publicly, as some kind of character flaw. Bucky accepted that without being hindered and didn't bother waiting around to make explanations. Not with so many things to be extreme, dedicated, and successful at...to ENJOY.
OK, so maybe he had "some" character flaws. Being a Marine, collector, builder, guide, competitor, hunter, skirmisher, scrounge, knight of the realm...whew, he really had some flaws. But all those things blended together so well it took awhile to discover that one of his biggest flaws was a huge nice streak. He tried to hide it, but he really was a nice guy. Wanted to be a nice guy. Usually managed to BE a nice guy. As long as it didn't really look like it.
If he was scrounging something, or getting you to go someplace, do something, or cough up a donation then "nice" was only part of getting you to go, do, donate, help. Which, if he succeeded, and he nearly always did, became another "good deed" for somebody or something,
somewhere. All those, when you add them up, made him a nice guy on a very very large scale.
The force of his personality was a powerful boost for every organization, group, and individual he worked with. He often kept them going when they might have quit: Found a way to do things right when there was just no way it could be done at all. The harder it was to dream up ways to get things done the more he seemed to take pleasure from it.
Bucky gave us decades of loyalty, endurance and strength with endless help, guidance, and encouragement. He also gave us moments of great adventure, tribulation (misery) and occasional celebration! He made the Team go out there and try to win gold medals...and in
the process created countless memories to store away and to build on.
So long as we remember what he did and what he got us to do...Bucky Malson will still be with us.
Tom Henley
