Omar Bradley

Omar Nelson Bradley worked as a boilermaker in Missouri before West Point, graduating in 1915 in the same class as Eisenhower. He spent World War I guarding copper mines in Montana, then cycled through teaching posts and staff jobs until George Marshall placed him at the Infantry School in 1941. After Pearl Harbor he converted the 82nd into the first American airborne division, then took his first combat command in North Africa under Patton. He led II Corps through Tunisia and Sicily, commanded First Army at Normandy, and after the breakout took charge of Twelfth Army Group - 43 divisions, a force no American general before or since has equaled. After the war he ran the Veterans Administration, became Chief of Staff in 1948 and first chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1949, earning his fifth star in 1950. When MacArthur pushed to widen the Korean War, Bradley helped persuade Truman to relieve him, arguing for containment over escalation. He stepped down in 1953 and died in 1981 at 88, the last five-star officer standing.