While serving as an instructor for the Illinois National Guard, Col. George C. Marshall, then 55, felt of “little importance to the Army.” He’d plateaued at colonel, and his future appeared mediocre. Then, the Army promoted him to brigadier general in October 1936 and posted him to the Vancouver Barracks.
A friend from the Great War, retired Gen. Charles Martin, now governor of Oregon, smoothed the way for Marshall’s arrival at the barracks. Excited by his new post and promotion, Marshall and his family took three leisurely weeks to drive cross country, vacationing and taking in the sights, while their Irish-setter, Pontiac, traveled by train. Although Marshall wanted to enter the post without ceremony, an honor guard and band awaited when he assumed command on Nov. 11, 1936.
Marshall soon realized his military duty was light. He commanded just 1,600 troops. He saw how the peacetime War Department had neglected Vancouver and recognized the combination of the barracks and Camp Bonneville as among the best Army staging sites in the nation. So, he put his prodigious organizational skills to work, gaining finances, updating the post and solving supply issues. When the War Department was sluggish in assigning funds, the general turned to D. Elwood Caples, the Democratic Party committeeman. They worked together to find funds within the Works Progress Administration to remodel the barracks. This work also improved the WPA’s image, which was making work for work’s sake during the Great Depression.
In those days no one guessed that the newly promoted brigadier general would rise to become the Army chief of staff during World War II and hold two Cabinet positions — secretary of state and secretary of defense under President Harry Truman — then win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for proposing and supervising the postwar recovery of Europe.
