Almond, Edward Mallory

Extract

Almond, Edward Mallory (12 December 1892–11 June 1979), army general, nicknamed Ned, was born in Luray, Virginia, the son of Walter Coles Almond, a farm implement salesman, and Grace Popham. Almond earned a bachelor of science degree at Virginia Military Institute, graduating third in the class of 1915. The next year, he received his commission as a U.S. Army second lieutenant and then graduated from Fort Leavenworth Army Service School in March 1917. When the United States declared war on Germany, Almond was with the Fourth Infantry Division, commanding a machine gun company. Seven months before leaving for France, he married Margaret Crook on 4 August 1917; the couple would have two children. Almond, now a captain, commanded the Twelfth Machine Gun Battalion in the Aisne-Marne and Meuse-Argonne campaigns, sustaining a shrapnel wound at the Vesle River and receiving a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. In July 1919 he left occupation duty with the Fourth Infantry in Germany to become a professor of military science and tactics at Marion Institute in Alabama....