Personal Life
While stationed at Fort Sill, he first met the daughter of the post Executive Officer, Katherine (Kitsy) Stevens Van Deusen, 9 years old at the time. They were married in 1947 and had three children: a daughter, Katherine Stevens; a son, James Ripley II; and another daughter, Margaret Childs.
Just hours after Westmoreland was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff on July 7, 1968, his brother-in-law, LTC Frederick Van Deusen (Commander of 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment), was killed when his helicopter was shot down in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.
Westmoreland died on July 18, 2005, at the age of 91 at the Bishop Gadsden retirement home in Charleston, South Carolina. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease during the final years of his life. He was buried on July 23, 2005, at the West Point Cemetery, United States Military Academy.
The General William C. Westmoreland Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, is named in his honor.
In 1996, the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution authorized the General William C. Westmoreland award. The award is given each year in recognition to an outstanding SAR Veterans Volunteer.
Read more about this topic: William Westmoreland
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,—what ample borrowers of eternity they are!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)