In Tribute to General William E. DePuy

General William E. DePuy changed the U.S. Army. As the
first commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command (TRADOC), he created the mechanisms to restore
the Army’s self-image as a conventional combat force trained
and configured for continental warfare. He made it a doctrinal
Army for the first time in its 200-year history. He laid the
foundation for the training revolution that followed in the 1980s
and for the development and fielding of the extraordinary
combat systems that proved themselves in Operation Desert
Storm. Personally, and as the leader of a major Army
command, he took hold of a defeated and discouraged Army
and put it on the road to victory.
After his retirement, General DePuy became something of a
philosopher of war. He wrote frequently for Army magazine on
topics of doctrinal interest and, even more important, remained
a figure to reckon with internally in the Army high command as
the mstitution followed through on the reforms and initiatives
he had set in motion. General DePuy in later life became a
teacher and mentor to the Army’s rising leaders. Those young
men who remember the general’s visits to the Command and
General Staff College, especially the School of Advanced
Military Studies, will remember his great wit, his charm, his
extraordinary intehect and understanding of war, and his
compassion and interest in those who followed him into the
profession of arms.
This pamphlet contains three eulogies presented by men who
need no introduction to the Army -General Maxwell R.
Thurman, Lieutenant General Orwin C. Talbott, and General
Paul F. Gorman. The memorials were read at General DePuy’s
memorial service at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., on
16 September 1992.