George C. Marshall

An American military leader and statesman, George C. Marshall was born December 31, 1880 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901, he entered the U.S. Army, where he was to have a long and distinguished career. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines, and was trained in modern warfare. During the war he had roles as a planner of training and operations. Between WWI and WWII, he was a key planner and writer in the War Department, spent three years in China, and taught at Army War College.

He went to France in the summer of 1917 as the director of training and planning for the First Infantry Division. In mid-1918, he was promoted to American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, where he was a key planner of American operations. In 1919 he became an aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing. Between 1920 and 1924, while Pershing was army chief of staff, Marshall worked in a number of positions in the US Army, focusing on training and teaching modern, mechanised warfare.

He was promoted to brigadier general in October 1936. In 1939 he was selected by Franklin D. Roosevelt to be army chief of staff, a position he held until 1945. Marshall was instrumental in getting the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps reorganized and ready for war. He was characterized as the organizer of Allied victory by Winston Churchill.

Marshall "retired" in November 1945 and was named secretary of state in 1947. As such, he designed the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. In 1949 he resigned from the State Department and was named president of the American National Red Cross. He was secretary of defense 1953-54. He died October 16, 1959.

Links

• The Marshall Foundation: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/