Ward Churchill - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Churchill was born in Urbana, Illinois to Jack LeRoy Churchill and Maralyn Lucretia Allen. His parents divorced before he was two, and he grew up in Elmwood, where he attended local schools.

In 1966, he was drafted into the United States Army. On his 1980 resume, he said he served as a public-information specialist who "wrote and edited the battalion newsletter and wrote news releases."

In a 1987 profile on Churchill, the Denver Post reported that he was drafted, went to paratrooper school, then volunteered for Vietnam, where he served a 10-month tour as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP), one of a six-man team sent out to track down the enemy. The Post article also reported that Churchill was politically radicalized as a result of his experiences in Vietnam. Churchill told the Post that he had spent some time at the Chicago office of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, and briefly taught members of the Weather Underground how to build bombs and fire weapons.

In 2005, the Denver Post reported that Churchill's military records show he was trained as a film projectionist and light truck driver, but they do not reflect paratrooper school or LRRP training. The 75th Ranger Regiment Association found no record of Churchill having been a member of the unit, or a LRRP team.

Churchill received his B.A. in technological communications in 1974 and M.A. in communications theory in 1975, both from Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield.