The man you're looking at is CSM Lawrence E. "Rabbit" Kennedy, a highly decorated soldier who served our Nation for 34 years, fighting in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. This is the man who walked for over 2 days from his town just to reach a recruiter's office to enlist in the Army in 1940. The man who fought and survived the European Campaign from Normandy to Germany's defeat, including spending 9 days in a foxhole with a dead German soldier during the Battle of the Bulge. The man who fought in Korea, and again in Vietnam. The man who came ashore in 1965 with the men of the 1st Cav, leading from the front and carrying the American Flag, a moment take by a photographer from TIME Magazine. The man who followed the old code of a “Brown Shoe Soldier”. Brown shoe soldiers were those veterans who believed in strong, hard discipline and training. They were hard on their men for the purpose of making them resilient and obedient. The man who was also compassionate and cared for his men, Kennedy even testified before Congress about Army policies he said treated enlisted men unfairly. The man whose leadership cemented him as one of the most trusted NCOs in the Army. Kennedy said the Army life was good to him, his wife, their son and their daughter. He’s often matter-of-fact about his presence in desperate situations, but he thinks often of the sacrifices he’s seen others make, time and time again.
As a command sergeant major, he said, his job was to instill in his men the discipline that would give them the best chance of surviving to go home and to run interference for them when bureaucracy got in the way of human needs. “The little guys,” he said. “That’s who I was there for.” Yesterday, CSM Kennedy passed away at the age of 93 in Amory, MS. We can only hope that such an example of a man, soldier and leader is not a thing of the past. #hero #warrior #military