Military Figure. He was a highly decorated soldier, serving 32 years in the United States Army during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He earned 77 citations for valor, including four distinguished flying crosses and four silver stars and a Purple Heart. Counting the 77 citations for valor, he earned 115 citations. Born one of seven children of a farmer, he earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University with high honors while participating in track and field. He was a graduate of the National War College, did graduate study at Harvard University and earned a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University. He joined the First Special Service Force, training at Fort Harrison near Helena, Montana. The First Special Service Force was a 1,600 man American-Canadian commando unit, who specialized in intensive battle training. During the summer of 1943, in the invasion to retake the Aleutian Islands from the Japanese, the First Special Service Force's goal was anticlimactic since the Japanese had withdrawn days before their invasion. A 26-year-old Army major with the First Special Service Force, he and five other men were in a five-man rubber boat when it began taking on water from the frigid Bering Sea. Bailing and rowing, the soldiers kept the boat afloat for hours until they were finally rescued and learned this assignment was abandoned. He became a member of the Devil's Brigade of First Special Service Force, which was formed to infiltrate Nazi-invaded Norway in 1943. The brigade's members were referred to as "black" since they smeared their faces with black boot polish for their covert operations in the dark of the night. In November of 1943, he crossed North Africa with the First Special Service Force, which joined the invasion of Italy, saw combat in the battles for Anzio, Naples and Mount la Difensiu and was with the first Allied unit to enter Rome on June 4, 1944. His unit's action was adapted to the 1968 film ""The Devil's Brigade." On August 14, 1944 the Brigade was shipped to Iles d'Hyères in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Southern France. Their last campaign was at the Franco-Italian border from September 7 to November 30, 1944. When the First Special Service Brigade was disbanded on December 5, 1944, he held the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel. The Devil's Brigade of the First Special Service evolved into the units called the Green Berets, Delta Force, and the Navy SEAL. At the end of World War II, his unit was in Germany, liberating the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich. During the Korean Conflict, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was deployed to Korea in 1952 to command an infantry regiment of the 25th Division, which relieved Marines holding the line astride the Panmunjan Corridor, the scene of intense fighting against North Korea and Chinese troops. After the war, he was the head of the Infantry Career Management Branch from the Pentagon. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1963. In 1967 he was deployed to Vietnam as assistant division commander of the First Division and commanded the division in the fierce 1968 combat of the TET Offensive. During his Vietnam tour, he was daily under fire with his men and never left the battle zone until every man was back. After retiring in 1970 at the rank of Brigadier General, he returned to Helena becoming active in the real estate business and civil affairs. He married twice and had two sons and two daughters with his first wife. He died at the Veteran's Medical Center at Fort Harrison from pneumonia. He was one of the last remaining members of the Devil's Brigade.