Hmmmm. I could have sworn he was. They were talking about this guy a few weeks ago on 97 Talk. I could be wrong, though...
....Upon graduating from Florida A&M University in 1967 with a degree in political science, Teele, an ROTC cadet, joined the U.S. Army as a lieutenant and was shipped off to Vietnam. In September 1968, he suffered shrapnel wounds to his left leg and was awarded a Purple Heart. Teele also earned a Meritorious Service Medal and two Bronze Stars, including one for valor. He was also promoted to captain. After his tour in Vietnam, Teele remained in the service and attended Florida State University's law school as part of an army-sponsored program to produce attorneys for the military. He graduated in 1972 and was transferred to Korea, where he became the Second Infantry Division's chief prosecutor; he tried cases of murder, rape, and other major felonies. He finished his military career as senior aide and chief counsel to Lt. Gen. Henry Emerson, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps.
Following Teele's honorable discharge from the army in 1976, Emerson, a Republican, introduced his former aide to the GOP hierarchy in Washington. Even this son of liberal Democrats could see the opportunities being offered him: Teele promptly declared himself a Republican.
In his resignation letter to the army, Teele stated he was leaving the armed forces to pursue a private law practice in Florida. But in truth he was less interested in practicing law than in making money, filled as he was with entrepreneurial spirit. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, he owned two small, black-oriented newspapers (the Capital Outlook in Tallahassee and the Daytona Times), and a pair of radio stations (WJAX in Jacksonville and WRIF in Detroit) and eventually sold them all for a profit.
Throughout this time, Teele was active in Republican politics and fought hard for Ronald Reagan's candidacy in 1980. His reward: a presidential appointment in 1981 to take over the Urban Mass Transit Administration. Two years later he left the Reagan Administration, a newly credentialed expert in transportation matters, on the prowl for his next business opportunity....
Leilani talking here: I think he was an undersec. in transportation dept under RR