Valor Friday

I talked a while back about French Private Jean Thurel. He was an 18th Century soldier in the French Army, who lived to be 108 years old. He spent more than 75 of his years as a soldier, earning three long service medals (the only man to have done so) and was knighted into the Legion of Honor by Napoleon Bonaparte personally. Thinking back on this, it made me wonder about who America’s longest serving soldiers and sailors were.

Perhaps one of the best-known long service cases in American history is that of General Winfield Scott. He was the Commanding General of the United States Army for more than 20 years (1841-1861), under an astonishing seven United States Presidents.

Scott started his service in the Virginia Militia in 1807 before scoring a commission into the regular Army the following year in the expansion of the service in the lead up to the War of 1812. Before the war, Scott was court martialed at one point for a $50 in an account under his charge, then fought in a duel with a medical officer he believed had initiated the court martial. During the war though, Scott distinguished himself and, in 1814 was promoted to brigadier general at just 28 years old. He also received a Congressional Gold Medal, at the time the highest honor afforded military officers. It remains one of the highest civil awards of the US Government.

Badly wounded in the war, Scott remained in the service post-war. He would negotiate the end to the Black Hawk War, serve in several other Indian War conflicts, and, even though he was the top ranking officer in the Army (and thus an administrator), led troops in several successful battles during the Mexican-American War.

In 1855, Scott, a substantive major general in rank, was made a brevet lieutenant general. He was the first man to hold that rank in the US Army since George Washington. His career ended when he retired in 1861, as President Lincoln increasingly sidelined him in favor of George McClellan as his chief military advisor. He’d spent 54 years in service to his country.

On the naval side of things, Charles Stewart was the Navy’s first admiral, longest serving officer, and one of the oldest officers ever on active duty. Stewart’s career began in 1798 at 19 years old, but he was already an experienced sailor, having first gone to sea as a cabin boy at age 13.

Working his way up the ranks from cabin boy, he became the master of a merchantman before getting one of the first commissions into the rebirthed United States Navy. After the Revolutionary War, the US had no standing Navy or Army, but the Quasi-War with France was demonstrating the need for at least some professional armed forces in the nascent republic.

He soon took command of a schooner and earned a reputation as a capable commander, capturing several enemy vessels and repatriating several American ships. He was made a captain in 1806, which at the time was the highest rank in the Navy, before leaving active service in favor of the merchant fleet.

During the War of 1812 Stewart returned to federal service. He commanded several of America’s premier warships, including taking USS Constitution into battle. Constitution remains on active service today as the nation’s oldest warship, and is the second oldest warship in the world still in commissioned service.

At the end of the war, before either side had received word, Captain Stewart commanded “Old Ironsides” in a spectacular victory against two British warships, capturing them both. For this he received a Congressional Gold Medal (the highest award of the US Government at the time).

Post-war, Stewart was made a commodore and saw service in South America and the Pacific. Commodore at the time was an appointment. “Admiral” was too British imperial for the Americans, so we didn’t have admirals as a matter of policy. Instead, senior captains would be made commodores, whose duties were essentially those of a rear admiral in other navies (and in later American service).

In 1851 he became, by the death of the senior officer above him, the service’s senior-most captain. In 1859, Congress made Stewart the Navy’s “senior flag officer.” This was an admiral’s appointment in practice, but without the title.

With the Navy’s expansion for the Civil War, the US for the first time created actual admirals. Though he’d retired in 1861, Stewart was made the service’s first rear admiral (on the retired list) in 1862. In a career that spanned more than 60 years, Steward was a captain for 52 years and 10 months, the longest any American officer has held a single rank.

In the 20th Century, several other officers would give Scott and Stewart a run for their money. First, it’s worth noting that all of the five star officers promoted during and shortly after World War II were officially on active duty for life. While they retired from active service, they remained on active duty at full pay and benefits until their death. Only Eisenhower resigned his five star rank when he became President (the POTUS can’t also be an active member of the military), but his rank was reinstated after he left office by an Act of Congress.

Among the five star officers were;

• Fleet Admiral Leahy, (66 years) from 1893 to his death in 1959 (though he retired in 1949)
• General of the Army George Marshall, (57 years) served from 1902 to his death in 1959 (retiring in 1945, later becoming Secretary of State and then Secretary of Defense)
• Fleet Admiral Ernest King, (55 years) served from 1901 to his death in 1956 (retiring in 1945)
• General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, (61 years) 1903 to 1964 (having retired after being famously fired in 1951)
• Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, (51 years) 1905-1966 (retiring 1947)
• General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, (54 years) 1915-1953 and 1961-1969 (retiring from the Army in 1952)
• General of the Air Force Hap Harnold, (43 years) 1907-1947 (US Army) and 1947-1950 (USAF), retiring in 1946
• Fleet Admiral William Halsey, (55 years) 1904-1959, retired 1947
• General of the Army Omar Bradley, (66 years) 1915-1981, retired 1953

Interestingly, among these officers were several men who’d received valor awards. MacArthur was the first son of a Medal of Honor recipient to also be awarded the medal (for his defense of the Philippines in the early days of American involvement in World War II). He’d previously twice been recommended for the MoH (during WWI), but both were downgraded to Distinguished Service Crosses. He received a third DSC during WWII.

King received the Navy Cross for services as Assistant Chief of Staff of the United States Navy during WWI. At the time, the Navy Cross was not strictly a combat gallantry decoration. Leahy and Halsey both were also awarded the Navy Cross for actions during WWI, for their commands of ships involved in the war in the Atlantic.

World War II was an inflection point for the US military. Prior to that conflict, the American standing military was relatively small. When war would come, we’d ramp up the size and capacity of our uniformed services, then cut them way, way back after the emergency ended. The start of the Cold War meant that even though the post-war military was significantly smaller than its wartime strength, it never really went back to what you’d consider “small.”

It’s no surprise then that a lot of people whose service began in World War II remained in uniform for a very long time.

One example of this is a lady named Grace Hopper. If we have any computer science majors in here, you’ll probably recognize the name. She was a 35 year old mathematics professor at Vassar when she joined the US Navy WAVES. She’d previously tried to enlist, but was told that she was too small (she was 15 pounds under the minimum weight of 120 pounds), too old, and that her job as a university instructor was wartime critical. She continued trying, eventually being accepted into the Navy Reserve, though she still needed a waiver for being underweight.

After officer’s training, she was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. There she worked on the Mark I Computer, an early general purpose mechanical computer used for the war effort. She remained in service post-war, and worked on the team developing the UNIVAC I computer. UNIVAC was the first general purpose electronic digital computer developed in the US.

UNIVAC was a revelatory system that changed the world. It famously predicted Eisenhower’s landslide victory in the Presidential Election of 1952. One of the things Hopper and her team worked on with UNIVAC was making the system easier to program. As such, she is considered the mother of the compiler-based programming language. Her pioneering work led directly to the development of the COBOL computer programming language, which is still in use almost 70 years later.

Hopper was forced to retire at age 60 in 1966 at the rank of commander. She was recalled to active duty a short time later. Retiring again in 1971, she once more was called back to service the following year. Promoted to captain in 1973, it took Congressional action to get her a star. President Reagan, once Congress started their process, promoted her to the short-lived one-star rank of commodore in 1983. In 1985 this became the rank of rear admiral (lower half), to which Hopper was converted, making one of the first female admirals in the USN.

Hopper remained in the Navy until she retired (finally for good) in 1986. She’d remained on active duty for a total of more than 42 years, having required Congressional approval to remain at her age. She was the oldest active duty officer at the time she retired (she was nearly 80), and remains one the oldest naval officers to have been in active service. For her retirement ceremony, she held it on the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship, USS Constitution.

One of the officers who was older and still in the Navy was the man who’d promoted Hopper to captain in 1973, Admiral Hyman Rickover. Rickover is famous as “The father of the nuclear navy” and was a flag officer for almost 30 years.

Rickover would spend more than 63 years on active duty, starting at the US Naval Academy in 1918 during World War I, graduating in 1922. He quickly became an engineering officer, and earned a reputation as a hard charger during World War II. Though not seeing combat, he did see overseas service in the Pacific Theater, and earned the rank of captain.

Post-war, Rickover became involved in the use of nuclear energy for the purposes of naval propulsion, which would become his life’s defining work. While working on the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, Rickover was promoted to rear admiral in 1953. He was charged with the construction of all the Navy’s nuclear ships, down to selecting officers (by personally interviewing them by the thousands) for them. He became only the second non-line officer to be promoted to full, four-star admiral in Navy history in 1973.

Rickover was finally forced into retirement after his 82nd birthday in 1982. He’d served through the administrations of 13 Presidents. He was fired on a minor operational error on his part during the testing of the newly fielded USS La Jolla. After his sacking, President Reagan called Rickover to the Oval Office a few weeks later, and invited him to be his special nuclear advisor. Rickover, in full dress uniform, is said to have told the Gipper, “’Mr. President, that is bullshit,” before walking out.

Rickover’s service saw him spend more time on active duty than any other man, including the lifetime appointments of the five-star admirals mentioned above. At 83, he is one of the oldest men to have ever been on active duty.

A controversial figure both within and without the Navy, Rickover earned many accolades during his service. He was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1980), the highest civil award of the Executive Branch. He received two Congressional Gold Medals (1958 and 1982), the highest civil award of the Legislative Branch, and is one of only four men to have received the honor twice.

On the Army side, General Lewis B Hershey is a name those of a certain age will be familiar with. Though he was the head of the US Selective Service for nearly thirty years, spanning all of American involvement in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam, it was the latter conflict that made his name a topic of household conversation.

Hershey’s service began in 1911 with the National Guard. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1913, he saw active federal service for the Mexican Border conflict in 1916 (parts of which became the Pancho Villa Expedition) and then was sent to France as part of the American Expeditionary Force.

Post-war, Hershey sought a regular Army commission, finally securing a captain’s billet in 1920. This was a rare feat, as officer slots were rarely available as the service wound down from its wartime staffing levels.

During the 20s and the 30s, Hershey steadily rose the ranks and served in a variety of staff positions. Promotions were scarce, as the Great Depression saw most career men remain in the military. He was a captain until 1935.

In 1936, Hershey was brought to staff service in Washington, DC. From here, he would become a key figure in the massive expansion of the American military as it geared up for World War II. He was appointed by President Roosevelt as executive officer of the Selective Service in 1940. The position came with a promotion to brigadier general, which meant that he skipped over ever being a full colonel (he’d been a lieutenant colonel only a few months).

In 1941, Hershey took over running the Selective Service. This came with a promotion to major general and meant that he was responsible for the classification and conscription of millions of young men during World War II. In December 1942, an Executive Order halted voluntary enlistments, meaning all men were henceforth drafted through the Selective Service System.

Hershey retired on 31 December 1946, but was retained on active duty the following day. He would remain the Director of the Selective Service System through Korea, being promoted to lieutenant general in 1956, and into the Vietnam Era. His service was uncontroversial until the latter conflict.

With the draft becoming increasingly unpopular due to the Vietnam War, Hershey took an old-fashioned, hard line stance on draft protests. In 1967 he ordered that those who abandoned or mutilated their draft cards should be declared “delinquent” and thus available for service. Destroying or discarding one’s draft card would thus mean you forfeit any deferments you may have had, such as was common for college students, who had a propensity to protest by burning their draft cards.

The order was found to be without statutory support, and courts also were likely to rule against it on First Amendment grounds. It only served to make the draft (and Hershey himself) even more unpopular. He eventually rescinded the order in 1970, but the damage was done.

In 1970 Hershey resigned from his position as head of Selective Service to become a special advisor to the President. He’d be promoted to full general the next day. He was involuntarily forced to actually retire in 1973 when he reached the maximum age of 79. He was one of the few officers to have served past the age limit of 64 instituted after the Civil War.

Hershey had spent 62 years in uniform, and more than 30 of that as a general officer.

Category: Historical, Valor, We Remember