Lehi People
Lehi couple were innovators during military service
Beky Beaton / Lehi Free Press
If you were to meet nine-year Lehi residents James and Karen Comish in a casual encounter, you would likely come away from it with the impression that they are a lot like many other retired couples in our area – very nice modest people who quietly raised a family and served in their community.
That would be an accurate assessment, but what you wouldn’t know – unless it somehow came up in the conversation – was that their “community” was a little bit wider than that of the average person.
Colonel James Comish retired from the U.S. Army after 30 years of service and was recalled twice for two additional years when the Army needed his special skills during challenging periods. Karen has been at his side through all but his earliest years in BYU’s R.O.T.C. program, where he started in 1974.
Military memories of Colonel Leo Stanford Comish Jr.
James finished growing up in Ogden, the son of Colonel Leo Stanford Comish Jr., himself a 31-year Army veteran who served during World War II and was deployed twice to Vietnam.
James took a leave of absence during his tenure at BYU to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to south-central Texas, including the San Antonio and Houston areas. He and Karen were married in 1978, and he graduated from BYU and was commissioned in 1980.
That, Karen said, was when the real adventures began. James served in the Adjutant General’s Corps, AG for short, which is essentially the human resources department of the Army. Right out of the gate, the couple received their first overseas assignment: V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany.
“I was terrified,” Karen admitted. She had grown up in Illinois and hadn’t been very many places in the United States, let along other countries. But, they packed their bags and off they went. Their first two children were born during the three years they were there.
The next stop was the now-closed Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, where two more children joined the family in the following four years.
Then it was on to Personnel Command in Washington D.C. where the next child arrived, and the last made his appearance while James was in school at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
After he graduated in 1992, the family returned to Germany and spent most of nine years there, first in Frankfurt again, then Heidelburg and Tazar, Hungary, followed by Wurzburg and then finally Schweinfurt, which they said was their favorite station.
James plays the piano by ear and has composed the music and lyrics for more than 90 songs. One of them, about their beloved Schweinfurt, was adapted by that city and is played for newcomers and refugees who come to the area.
During the 1990s, the U.S. military was involved in a series of mostly limited engagements for specific purposes in far-flung areas of the world. James was deployed to Bosnia, Macedonia and elsewhere; two Comish sons have later served variously in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.
James wrote his thesis on personnel operations during Desert Storm, and in the middle of this period he became involved in efforts to update the Army’s antiquated, laborious handwritten method of keeping track of soldiers.
He wanted to add encrypted bar codes to the back of Army ID cards to make it easier for soldiers to check in and out of assignments and use their commissary and other military privileges. His team worked with the vendor that supplied the cards to implement that idea.
James and his team also developed the gun and swipe scanners which were used to read the cards, and these were initially tested by special forces units in Rwanda. This capability is now widely adapted in many non-military applications, such as checking passengers on and off of cruise ships.
Eventually the system was refined in ways that vastly sped up meeting and balancing military manpower requirements as well as protecting confidential information about soldiers, and commanders took notice.
While on vacation in 1995, James was floating in a boat on a lake in Minnesota when he received a phone call from Dr. Edwin Dorn, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. He was summoned to Washington D.C., where he received a Federal Leadership Technology Award for his work.
James is now noted as the “Father of the PAS” – the Personnel Accounting System – which is still in use today, albeit with further technological refinements.
Karen never wore the uniform, but she found ways to make her own contributions. The one that she’ll be best remembered for is what she did in their final overseas assignment in Schweinfurt.
James was the Military Community Commander there, and her position as his wife gave her some operating room to implement her ideas.
She said, “It bothered me when I would hear military family members say things like ‘I hate it here.’ I decided we needed to do something about that.”
Upon arrival in Germany, incoming troops entered a two-week orientation course to acquaint them with their surroundings plus local culture and customs. Karen designed a parallel course for military spouses to help them get their feet under them in their new location.
She also persuaded the battalion commanders to give their soldiers one day off at the end of the course, when they would take a day trip of their choice with their spouse. This program was so successful in improving family adaptation and morale that it was adopted by many other Welcome Centers in Europe.
Before the Comishes returned to the U.S. in 2000, they made sure that this course was integrated into the Army Community Service organization so it would continue after they were gone.
That same year, Karen received one of five annual worldwide Very Important Patriot Awards presented by the National Military Family Association. By then she had logged more than 1,800 hours of service in the cause of military families.
On this occasion, the Comishes once again found themselves in Washington D.C., where they were housed at the Ritz-Carlton and met members of Utah’s Congressional delegation, including Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett. They also ran into former Senator Bob Dole at the hotel.
James completed his Army career stateside, with assignments in Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina. The couple spent three years in Idaho before moving to Lehi in 2017.
The Comish home is a showplace of multi-generational military memorabilia, including an extensive collection of military challenge coins. Karen focused on Hummel figurines, and also Polish pottery and corn husk dolls. They both enjoyed scouring European flea markets for interesting antique items.
Hand-painted pottery eggs from Poland.
Since retiring for good in 2012, the couple have turned their energy and creativity in new directions. Karen started collecting shells and has decorated her walls and shelves with not just individual pieces, but amazing and inventive works of art made from them.
Both have done extensive family history work, and they have filled several bookshelves with histories and family albums in matching custom-stamped binders. The Comish line originated on the Isle of Man, situated in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and northern England.
They have made several visits, and James has a collection of rocks which started with picking up pebbles on the beach there. He later tumbled these to a marble-like polish and has since added specimens from many other places.
Their latest project is to stage a one-day Trek experience for families in their local ward in July. Watch for a report on that in a future issue.
