Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History
A native of Columbus, Major General Raymond E. Mason Jr. (ret.) graduated from The Ohio State University in 1941. He served in the European Theater of Operations during World War II, in the Fourth Armored Division of General George S. Patton’s Third Army. He was a member of the active reserves for 35 years.
Gen. Mason is a graduate of the USA Command and General Staff College and attended the U.S. Army War College. Prior to retiring from the military in 1976, he held several high-ranking Pentagon positions, including Assistant Deputy Chief for Operations and Special Assistant to Deputy Chief of Logistics.
In 1949, Gen. Mason purchased Columbus Truck and Equipment Company and began a distinguished career in the transportation industry. Time magazine named him Truck Dealer of the Year in 1972, and he has received two awards from Mack Trucks.
In 2006, Gen. Mason gave funds to convert the endowed professorship in military history named after him to an endowed chair. The Mershon Center and the Department of History are proud to announce that Col. Peter R. Mansoor will be the new Mason Chair in Military History starting Fall 2008.
Mansoor, currently executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, was one of the major authors of the report on the situation in Iraq, delivered by Petraeus to Congress on Sept. 10-11, 2007. He also served on the Council of Colonels that assisted the Joint Chiefs of Staff in reassessing Iraq War strategy and devising the surge strategy currently being employed. Mansoor is also the founding director of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Mansoor is author of The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-45 (University Press of Kansas, 1999), which won the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award and the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award. He has also recently completed Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq, to be published by Yale University Press in Fall 2008. Mansoor received a Ph.D. in Military History from The Ohio State University in 1995.
The previous holder of the Mason Chair was Allan R. Millett, now Stephen B. Ambrose Professor of Military History and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans.
To donate additional funds to the Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History, please visit its page in University Development.
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