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U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues
Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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General Creighton Williams Abrams, Jr.
(1914-1974)
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Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, General Abrams would have been sixty on September 15th. He had worn his country's uniform for over forty-two years, for four years as a cadet at West Point, and for thirty-eight years as an Army officer.
A veteran of three wars, General Abrams rose to the Army's highest leadership position because he was preeminently a leader and commander of troops, particularly in wartime. From platoon to corps, he commanded at every Level and finally served as Joint Commander of all U.S. Forces in Vietnam. Commissioned in the Cavalry in 1936, General Abrams served initially with various cavalry and tank units of the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Armored Division. Joining the newly activated 4th Armored Division in 1941, he remained with the Division throughout World War II. As a battalion commander, and then combat command commander, he participated in every campaign the Division fought and became widely known as one of the Army's most aggressive and successful Armor commanders. It was Lieutenant Colonel Abrams, in a conference on the banks of the Moselle, who pointed east and remarked: "That is the shortest way home." It was a tank unit called Task Force "Abe" that led the thrust across the Moselle; it was a tank unit commanded by Abrams that broke the German encirclement at Bastogne. It was Abrams' unit that tore from Bitburg to the Rhine including an attack of over forty miles in less than two days. Time and time again Abrams led the thrust across the German homeland and into Czechoslovakia, often at the head of the column. His World War II commander, General George S. Patton, Jr., once said: "I'm supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army but I have one peer - Abe Abrams. He's the world champion."
The 4th Armored Division is now inactive, but its former members still meet from time to time. To these men, General Abrams was always one of them. At a 4th Armored Division Association convention last year, General Abrams was introduced to the gathering as "the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Colonel Abe!"
During the Korean War, General Abrams served successively as Chief of Staff of I, IX and X Corps. He participated in the defense against the last major Communist offensives of the war. He remained to help set up I Corps as a key link in the United Nations Command organization.
Following his duty in Korea, General Abrams served for a period as Chief of Staff of the Armor Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Returning to Europe in 1959, he was assigned as Assistant Division Commander, 3d Armored Division, and later as Commanding General of the Division. After another tour in Washington and yet another in Europe, this time as a Corps Commander, he received his fourth star and was selected as the Army's Vice Chief of Staff.
General Abrams, commanding U.S. forces in Vietnam, confers with General Forsythe, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, in Phuoc Vinh, 1968.
In 1967, he became Deputy Commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; a year later, he was appointed its Commander. For the four years General Abrams commanded in Vietnam, it was his task to reduce direct U.S. military involvement and to transfer increasing defense responsibilities to Vietnamese forces, as they became capable of assuming them. By the time he left Vietnam in 1972, that job had been virtually completed.
After his extensive service in Vietnam, General Abrams was nominated to be Chief of Staff, United States Army, and was confirmed by the Senate on October 12, 1972. Since that day, General Abrams' principal challenge was to knit together an Army that had suffered the double trauma of rapid reduction in size and massive repositioning of forces, both occasioned by the end of U.S. military operations in Vietnam. To add to the challenge, it was during this same period that authority for induction ended, and the Army shifted to an all-volunteer footing.
The major themes in the Army during those two years were Abrams themes, as plain and strong as the man who established them: the readiness mission; rethinking the Army's role; and taking care of the soldier. The actions that flowed from this guidance increased the readiness and effectiveness of the Army dramatically. At the same time, morale improved and disciplinary problems subsided, responding to the firm hand at the top. Just prior to his being stricken by lung cancer, General Abrams had set in motion a program to increase markedly the Army's combat capability without increasing its total strength. It was to be done the Abrams way, by cutting out entire headquarters, by making other headquarters - including his own - much smaller, and by making every element in the Army count toward the overall mission.
Direct and plain-spoken, General Abrams liked being around soldiers and was approachable by soldiers of all ranks. He understood them, and they respected and admired him. He was equally respected by his civilian superiors and by Members of Congress. Secretary of the Army Howard H. Callaway referred to him as "our number one soldier." Senator John C. Stennis, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, made reference to General Abrams as "a real soldier . . . I always thought of him as having mud on his boots." Senator Sam Nunn, another member of the Armed Services Committee, referred to him as "a great soldier."
His military superiors also thought highly of General Abrams as he assumed positions of increasing responsibility. When Brigadier General Abrams was a young Assistant Division Commander in Europe in the early sixties, his Division Commander wrote: " . . . he has attained a rare balance between his natural characteristics of a colorful, decisive, driving commander and a calculating, canny, thorough planner . . . He knows soldiers as few men do and has no peer as an armored leader."
Abrams as Division Commander was, if anything, even more highly praised. According to his Corps Commander, ". . he is the outstanding armor commander of his generation . . He is open, honest, frank, sincere, completely dedicated to the Army and the highest ideals of service . . . He is tactful but firm."
COMUS HONORS CAV – General Creighton W. Abrams, commanding general United States Army Vietnam, presents the 69th battle streamer to the 3/4 Cav during ceremony at Cu Chi. (Photo by SP4 Joe Loper)
Throughout his subsequent career, General Abrams was repeatedly evaluated in terms such as "unequalled," "without peer," "the best." That he became Chief of Staff of the Army surprised none of those officers under whom he served.
Preferring to remain as far from the public eye as possible, he was well-known to the public and sought by the media, largely as a result of his straightforward, candid way of conducting the public's military business.
General Abrams was a private person, by preference. He enjoyed listening to classical music at home, and just being with his family. He tended to limit his public appearances and speech-making, but people liked to hear him talk. He had a modest, but well-polished, collection of stories, many of them autobiographical, at least in spirit. His favorite stories tended to hark back to earlier days, to the era when he played football at West Point and to his early cavalry days. The messages he brought to the military and civilian groups he talked to reflected the basic ideas he felt most strongly about: the safety of the Nation; the need for the Army to be ready, and the dreadful human costs of unpreparedness; the importance of simple integrity; and the needs the paramount needCof remembering the soldier and his immediate leaders, the people at the end of a long chain of command.
General Abrams is survived by his wife, the former Julia Harvey, and by their children; Noel, Creighton Jr., John, Jeanne, Elizabeth, and Robert Bruce. He is also survived by a sister, Bette (Mrs. William L.) James of Feeding Hills.
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