"If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known." -General George Marshall
General
Marshall proposed the plan to create a relief project to help Europeans rebuild
their way of life and to assist Europe’s economy in a time of desperation. He
lived from December 31st 1880 to October 16th 1959. Mr.
Marshall was a leader in the military, a Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII
and was the chief military advisor for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He
later became the Secretary of State for America. In the spring of 1947, he
presented an address to assist Europeans in their long clean up efforts, at
Harvard University. As a child, he grew up in a middle-class family in
Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He had a father, George Catlett Marshall Sr., and a
mother, Laura Emily Marshall. He was a relative of former Chief Justice John
Marshall. After he finally graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, he
joined the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901. He became a Second Lieutenant in the
Army and was schooled and trained for modern warfare. During WWI, Marshall was
an operations planner and a training planner. He was a major part of the design
and tight connections of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which contributed to the
defeat of the Germans on the Western Front. In WWII, George Marshall was
elevated to the Army’s Chief of Staff by President Franklin Roosevelt, and he
put together the largest military expansion in all of U.S. history. After he
returned to America in 1947, President Harry Truman appointed him Secretary of
State. He became the main force for helping to fix Europe. Originally, a man
named Clark Clifford said that they should name it the Truman Plan, but the
president refused, and insisted on the Marshall Plan as the name. General
George Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, and was the only United
States General to receive the award.