CanyonAg77 said:
General Schriever is probably the most important Aggie, who served in the U.S. Military, and that no one has ever heard of.
from my research notes as I build my Chronicles of WWII Aggies
Gen. Bernard A. "Bennie" Schriever From Fifth Air Force Combat Pilot to "Father of the Air Force Space and Missile Program"Schriever, a German immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1923, earned his degree at A&M in 1931 and was commissioned in the Field Artillery before transferring to the Air Corps in 1933. After a stint flying for Northwest Airlines in the late 1930s, he returned to active duty, earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from Stanford in 1942, and joined the 19th Bombardment Group in the Southwest Pacific, flying combat missions as a B-17 pilot. In January 1943, he moved into engineering and maintenance leadership with the Fifth Air Force Service Command, eventually rising to chief of staff and then commanding officer of advanced headquarters for the Far East Air Service Command, supporting operations from New Guinea through the Philippines to Okinawa. He left the war a colonel. Nearly a decade later, as head of the Western Development Division, Schriever directed the crash development of the nation's first intercontinental ballistic missiles Atlas, Titan, Thor, and Minuteman earning him the title "Father of the Air Force's ballistic missile and space program." Colorado's Falcon Air Force Base was renamed Schriever Air Force Base in his honor in 1998, while he was still living. The Book of Aggie Lists adds that Falcon Air Force Base was officially renamed Schriever Air Force Base on June 5, 1998 a rare case of an installation named for a living person and was re-designated Schriever Space Force Base in 2021.
Source: Texas Aggie, July 15, 1943 (Image 3); April 17, 1944 (Image 3); November 22, 1946 (Page 2); Air Force official biography, af.mil; National Museum of the U.S. Air Force; Wikipedia, "Bernard Schriever" class-year affiliation per AFS/A&M record, not this project's newspaper archive. Installation history added 10Oct2026 from The Book of Aggie Lists, ed. James Woodall.
Senior Bio 1931 Longhorn