George C Marshall

Born on December 31, 1880, George Catlett Marshall Jr was Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the Army. He organized the victory in WWII and served as Army Chief of Staff during WWII. He was the military adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Marshal received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his proposal to allow Europeans to create their own plans for rebuilding after WWII. The Marshal Plan was a speech given at Harvard University in 1947.
Marshall graduated from VMI and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. He went to France in 1917, and by 1918 he was promoted to the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters. He was instrumental in the design or the Neuse-Argonne Offensive which defeated the German Army on the Western Front.
In 1936 Marshall was promoted to Brigadier General and commanded the Vancouver Barracks in Vancouver Washington. He was reassigned as Deputy Chief of Staff in 1938. In 1939 Marshall was promoted to Army Chief of Staff to Roosevelt and awarded the rank of general that same year.
Marshall modernized the U.S. Army and handpicked Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Omar Bradley as generals. Marshall was tasked with the duty of transforming eight million soldiers into a war machine by 1942. Marshall was the tool that prepared the U.S. Army and Army Air Forces for the invasion of Europe. He wrote the central strategy for all Allied operations in Europe. In 1944 Marshall became the first five star general and was appointed as General of the Army. Marshall was Man of the Year in 1943 via Time magazine and remained active for life in his general capacity.
In 1947 Marshal was appointed Secretary of State. He was the spokesman for the State Department's ambitious plan to rebuild Europe. His Marshal Plan provide Europe the ability to rebuild and modernize its economy.
Marshall was married to Elizabeth Carter Coles in 1902. She died in 1927. Katherine Boyce Tupper became his wife in 1930.