On January 9, 1924, Strom Thurmond is commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the Officers Reserve Corps. He volunteers for active duty on December 11, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the same day that Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. As a South Carolina judge at the time, he could easily have stayed at home. Instead he went to England with HQ, First U.S. Army, as a civil affairs officer. Thurmond again answered the call of duty when the 82nd Airborne Division (Organized Reserve) needed civil affairs volunteers to go with them on D-Day. Lt. Col. Thurmond accompanied the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment to Normandy, crash-landing in a glider near St. Mere Eglise on June 6, 1944. Although wounded in the landing, Thurmond stayed in action, initially serving more as an infantry officer than a civil affairs officer in the first days of the Allied liberation of Europe. For his actions in the first week of the invasion, Thurmond later received the Bronze Star Medal, as well as the Purple Heart Medal for his glider landing wounds. Near the end of the war, Thurmond was one of the first Americans to enter Buchenwald concentration camp. When the fighting ended in Europe, Thurmond went to the Pacific to prepare for First Army's role in the invasion of Japan but the war ended before the invasion could be launched. Thurmond returned to civilian life, becoming South Carolina's governor in 1947 and U.S. Senator in 1954. He stayed in the Army Reserve and rose to the rank of major general before retiring in 1960.
On May 25, 1997, Senator Thurmond became the longest serving senator in U.S. history. The President signed the "Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999" on October 20, 1998, named for Thurmond as a tribute to his 36 years in the Army Reserve and 40 years in the Senate. In 2001, Thurmond, who is also the Senate President Pro Tempore, continues to serve in the U.S. Senate.