Early Life and Career
He was born in Verndale, Minnesota, the son of James and Clara Manz McNair. He graduated eleventh in a class of 124 from the United States Military Academy and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant of Artillery (1904). He then served in a series of ordnance and artillery appointments in Utah, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. (1904–1909). He was promoted to 1st lieutenant (June 1905) and captain (May 1907) and was then assigned to the 4th Artillery Regiment in the west (1909–1914). While attached to the regiment he was sent to France to observe French artillery training for a period of seven months (1913) and upon return took part in Major General Frederick Funston's expedition to Vera Cruz (April 30-November 23, 1914). He then saw service under General John J. Pershing, in the Pancho Villa Expedition, and was promoted to major (May 1917).
Read more about this topic: Lesley J. McNair
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“It is so very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)