How This Started

This website officially started in December 2009, but it really started many years before.

I'm Linda Grissette.  I pledged CAPERS in December 1967 and was National Commander for the 1970-71 school year.  I left CAPERS when I graduated, but CAPERS never really left me.

As a new military wife, my husband was stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia from October 1971 to April 1972.  I remember being thrilled that I was in a location near some of the CAPER Companies were located.  While we were there I went to visit CAPER Company D-15 at Hampton Institute (now University) and even helped judge their spring drill meet!  When my husband left for Germany, I went back to Oklahoma to wait to be able to get to Germany.  While I was there, I stopped in to visit Gwen Howell and Paulette Kikugawa.  That's when I found out that the headquarters was moved to Kansas State University.  It felt like I had lost something!

For some reason, as the years passed, I felt that CAPERS no longer existed.  I knew that women had been allowed in ROTC and knew that they would also be joining Pershing Rifles.....and I expected that CAPERS would have then been ended.  OK, so I got the reason and detail wrong, but by the 1990's I just knew that CAPERS were no more!

Once I got on the internet in 1994, I would occasionally search for CAPERS on the internet.  It was like no one even knew that we existed!

In 1999 I had a strange dream that woke me up.  In the dream I was reading something like a Parade Magazine and was reading an article about CAPERS.  I kept going over through the pages thinking "But they forgot about us."  That's when I woke up.  As soon as I could, I searched the internet again.  Again, I only got recipes for "CAPERS" and nothing for "Coed Affiliates Pershing Rifles"....as usual.  Then I searched for Pershing Rifles and ended up finding the website of NSPRAA which said that Pershing Rifles, CAPERS and Pershing Angels could join the alumni group!  It was so great to see us mentioned.  But I wondered what in the world Pershing Angels were.  I finally found their website sent an e-mail to them.  That night I got a phone call and was asked  "Where were you three years ago when we needed you?"  She ended up sending me their materials which included the history which somehow skipped myself, Paulette Kikugawa and Gwen Howell, so they really had "forgotten us"!!!

That got me re-writing the history and working to remember CAPER companies.  Periodically over the next 10 years, I thought I should work on a website for CAPERS, but knew it would take entirely too much time (...and it has!).   In November of 2009, I happened to look at the copy of the 1969 Pershing Rifleman that was my reference for remembering the CAPER companies.  I had gotten on Facebook a few month before and decided I'd see if I could find anyone from the 1968-69 Pershing Rifles National Staff.....and I found Dennis Lambert (the 1969-70 National Commander).  So later that day, I searched on the internet again for CAPERS (OK, that still only gets recipes...I search for Coed Affiliates Pershing Rifles) and found a CAPER alumni on LinkedIn! 

And that is what got me started!  Since then it has become a wonderful adventure!!

There has also been another wonderful adventure.....starting a University of Oklahoma Pershing Rifles Alumni group.