Samuel V. Wilson

A native of Rice, Virginia, Samuel Vaughan Wilson grew up on a tobacco, corn and wheat farm in Southside Virginia hard by the Saylers Creek battlefield, where on 6 April 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia fought its final battle before limping on westward to surrender three days later at Appomattox Courthouse.

As a boy, Sam Wilson often rode his pony over the battlefield area looking for the footprint of two armies locked in combat.

What still remained of his spare time after arduous farm chores was spent hunting, fishing, reading and pursuing his musical interests.

His mother had been a public school teacher, and his father was a ruling elder in the local Presbyterian church.

Both parents taught at Sunday school, his mother was his first Sunday School teacher and raised the Wilson siblings in the church.

Both parents influenced their children to love books and enjoy reading, especially history.

Lieutenant General Samuel Vaughan Wilson (September 23, 1923 – June 10, 2017), aka "General Sam," completed his active military career in the fall of 1977, having divided his service almost equally between special operations and intelligence assignments.

Sam began his formal education in the fall of 1929, daily walking the two miles one-way to Rice High School and return to the farm.

He graduated at the head of his class on 26 May 1940.

Two weeks later he jogged seven miles through a rainy night from the family farm to the local National Guard armory, where he added two years to his actual age to qualify and was sworn into military service.

Sam Wilson joined the 116th Infantry Regiment, (Virginia National Guard) as a 16-year-old private bugler in June 1940.

By early 1942, he had become successively a squad leader, platoon sergeant and acting first sergeant before being sent to Infantry Officer Candidate School (OCS), where he graduated as an 18-year-old second lieutenant at the head of his class and was selected to remain at The Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, as an instructor.

As a young officer, Wilson taught guerilla and counterguerilla tactics at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1942 and 1943.

In 1943, already a first lieutenant at the age of 19, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and subsequently responded to a presidential call for volunteers for "a dangerous and hazardous mission" to be undertaken by an elite regimental-sized unit.

This move resulted in his becoming chief reconnaissance officer for the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), better known as Merrill's Marauders, which operated behind enemy lines in Burma during World War II.

Upon returning to the US from the China-Burma- India Theater as a combat veteran in fall 1944 with his fifth consecutive appointment in hand to the US Military Academy, Wilson was denied admission to West Point for medical reasons.

His tour in Burma had ended with multiple medical ailments, including malaria, amoebic dysentery, mite typhus and severe malnutrition.

He returned to the Infantry School where he developed and taught courses in military leadership for the next two years.

During this period he applied for and was granted a commission in the Regular Army.

This move exposed that he had been a fraudulent enlistment, having told a "white lie" earlier about his age, and resulted in his being appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Army as of age 21—by which time he had already become a combat-experienced captain, Army of the United States (AUS).

In September 1947, although he was only a high school graduate from a small rural school, he entered the Army's Foreign Area Specialist Training Program (FASTP) and was enrolled in graduate school at Columbia University, specializing in the Russian language and related background and area subjects.

Following a successful stint in graduate school, he was assigned for 3 1⁄2 years to Europe as a language and area student, where he developed near-native fluency in the Russian language, as well as a working knowledge of several other languages.

Noteworthy extra-curricular activities during this period included being assigned to the State Department's Diplomatic Pouch and Courier Service, which led to extensive travels throughout the Iron Curtain countries and the Soviet Union, as well as to other countries peripheral to the USSR; functioning as an official interpreter in Berlin, Potsdam and Vienna; and serving in a liaison capacity with elements of the Soviet armed forces in East Germany and in Eastern Austria.

Newly promoted to major, Wilson returned to Washington and was assigned to the Army General Staff (Intelligence) in fall 1951, where he handled a variety of sensitive special projects until reassignment to attend the Infantry Officers Advanced Course in 1953.

Upon graduation from this course, he was placed on special assignment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) matters as a consultant on Soviet affairs.

In the fall of 1955, Wilson began a three -year assignment with CIA's clandestine services, serving part of this period as a CIA case officer running a series of clandestine operations against the Soviet Union from a cover office in West Berlin.

Following completion of the US Army Command and General Staff Course and promotion to lieutenant colonel, Wilson was assigned in June 1959 as Director of Instruction of the US Army Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, NC.

Over the next two years, he gained considerable notoriety for his foundational work on doctrine for small wars, insurgency and counter-insurgency.

His role in that theater was later memorialized in Charlton Ogburn's book The Marauders, which subsequently was made into the 1962 film Merrill's Marauders (film).

Then-Lt.

Col. Wilson served as technical advisor for the film and was cast as General Merrill's deputy "Bannister" under the pseudonym Vaughan Wilson; he also appeared in the film trailer introducing the film and narrating the trailer.

Lieutenant General Wilson is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the Air War College, where he was the distinguished graduate in the Class of 1964.

Following World War II, General Wilson studied at Columbia University and in Europe as a member of the US Army Foreign Area Specialist Training Program (FASTP), later known as the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program, mastering several languages and becoming a specialist on the former Soviet Union.

He has attended a number of night schools, taken numerous correspondence courses and is the recipient of several honorary degrees.

He served as 22nd President of Hampden-Sydney College from 1992–2000 and as 5th Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from May 1976-August 1977; for his foundational work in doctrine for low intensity conflict, where he coined the term "counterinsurgency" (COIN); and for facilitating the drafting and passage of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the 1987 Defense Authorization Act, effectively creating the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD/SOLIC).

He is also credited with helping to create Delta Force, the U.S. Army's premier counterterrorism unit.

In his post-military career, he began working at Hampden-Sydney College in 1977, first as a Professor of Political Science, then as its 22nd President, and subsequently as Wheat Professor of Leadership at the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest.

Wilson altogether was part of Hampden-Sydney for forty years.

As a general officer, some of his assignments included: Assistant Division Commander (Operations), 82nd Airborne Division; (First) United States Defense Attaché to the Soviet Union, Deputy to the Central Intelligence for the Intelligence Community, and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Wilson died from lung cancer on June 10, 2017 in Rice, Virginia, age 93.