Veteran Solutions

Air Force Veteran Cormac McCarthy, the celebrated and best-selling author of 12 novels and multiple plays and short stories, including “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men.”

McCarthy was born in Rhode Island in 1933, but grew up in Tennessee. The college dropout joined the Air Force in 1953, serving four years total, including two in Alaska. It was there that the bored airman “read a lot of books very quickly,” perhaps spurning his aversion to punctuation and an interest in writing.

When McCarthy completed his enlistment and re-entered school, he wrote and published two award-winning stories. After dropping out (again, and finally), he moved into a shack at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains to focus on writing. “I always knew that I didn’t want to work,” McCarthy said in 2017 interview. “You have to be dedicated, but it was my number-one priority.”

What followed was more than 55 years of success and critical acclaim, as McCarthy eventually became the recipient and winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

McCarthy died at his home in New Mexico on June 13, 2023. He was 89.

We honor his service.

Harry Liversedge was born in September 1894 in Volcano, California. He enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, and, while attending school, participated and won third place in the 1920 Olympic shot put competition. He joined the Marines in 1917, and he was commissioned a year later.

Early in his career, Liversedge served across multiple locations, first in France in 1919, when he was also promoted to first lieutenant. Back in the United States, he briefly served in Quantico, Virginia, before again deploying abroad to join the Second Provisional Marine Brigade in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After a brief return to Virginia and Maryland, Liversedge then served as an aide to the American high commissioner in Haiti.

A proven athlete, Liversedge participated in his second Olympics competition in 1924 while serving at the Naval Academy. He then served in Virginia and California before deploying to China. His athleticism once again aided him when he was tasked with providing boxing training training with the Third Brigade in Tienstin. In Shanghai, he also participated in the International Track and Field Meets, a major track and field competition.

After his service in China, Liversedge returned to Virginia. He then relocated to California for the second time, earning a promotion to the rank of captain and serving as an aide to the commanding general at the Department of the Pacific Headquarters. Liversidge then for the first time served aboard a ship in 1933 when he was assigned to USS California. He continued serving domestically for the next several years, moving between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Quantico, Virginia; Spokane, Washington; and San Diego, California.

From its beginning, Liversedge played a significant role in the Marine Corps during World War II. He started by commanding the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, in American Samoa in January 1942. He continued commanding his fellow servicemen for the remainder of the war, leading the Third Marine Raider Battalion beginning 1942 and the First Marine Raider Regiment beginning March 1943. In that role, he led his unit against Japanese forces and subsequently earned a Navy Cross. Next, he commanded the 28th Marines and led his unit in the Iwo Jima Campaign, commanding his troops for the entire 36-day campaign, which ended with one of the most iconic images of the war.

At the end of the war, Liversedge served briefly in Japan before finally returning home, where he remained for the rest of his career. He served in California as director of the Twelfth Marine Reserve District, as a district marine officer for the Twelfth Naval District and as assistant commander for the 1st Marine Division in Camp Pendleton. In 1948, he earned a promotion to brigadier general, which was his final rank, and continued serving in high-level positions in Guam and California. In 1950, he assumed his final position as director of the Marine Corps Reserve.

Liversedge died in November 1951 at the age of 57.

We honor his service.

Writer: Khaled Maalouf

Editors: Cate Manning, Delaney Tracy

Researchers: John Bergstrom

Graphic Designer: Leon Saul

Deborah Loewer was born in Springfield, Ohio. She attended and graduated from Shawnee High School in 1972 before enrolling in nearby Wright State University. There, she received a degree in math and computer science in 1976. Later that year, she earned a commission in the Navy after moving to Newport, Rhode Island, to attend the Officer Candidate School, from which she graduated second in her class. She was also the first ever female battalion commander at the school.

For the next three years, Loewer served at the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington, D.C., as the pay and allowance functional manager. In 1979, she was one of the first women to complete the Surface Warfare Officer Basic course. Again, she excelled, graduating at the top of her class.

That same year, Congress lifted the ban on female sea service. With that change, Loewer then became one of the first women to complete shipboard duty after boarding USS Yosemite. One of only three women on that ship, she served in several positions, including administrative officer, electrical division officer and navigator. She also helped design the ship’s computer systems as part of the Commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic staff.

Loewer was selected in 1984 to be an Olmsted Scholar. She then continued her education at the Defense Language Institute in California before moving abroad to Germany, first settling in Stuttgart to attend the Goethe Institute, and then moving to Kiel to earn a doctorate at the University of Kiel.

After returning to the U.S., Loewer moved back and forth between sea deployments and service in the nation’s capital. She began by serving on USS Yellowstone in 1987 and then USS Monongahela before moving to Washington in 1991 to serve in the Strategic Concepts Branch of the Navy Staff. She then returned to sea on USS Mount Baker for two years before serving as military assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense, John White, and later Assistant Secretary of Defense, William Cohen. After captaining USS Camden, she spent the rest of her career primarily in Washington, D.C.

In the capital, Loewer became director at the White House Situation Room and director of Systems and Technical Planning Staff in 2001. In these positions, she played a big role in the White House’s 9/11 response. That same year, she also became the first woman qualified for war to be promoted to rear admiral. In 2003, she served as vice commander of the Military Sealift Command, an agency that included over 120 ships and 8,000 employees, before commanding the Mine Warfare Command beginning in January 2005. She retired two years later after having served for 31 years.

We honor her service.

Writer: Khaled Maalouf

Editors: Cate Manning

Researchers: Raphael Romea

Graphic Designer: Saul Leon

Navy Veteran Mildred Helen McAfee pioneered women’s military leadership as the first director of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, in the Navy and as the first woman to be commissioned in U.S. Navy Reserve.

McAfee was born in 1900 in Parkville, Missouri, and lived there until her family moved to Chicago. Her father worked as a reverend, and her grandfather founded Park College (now Park University), motivating McAfee to achieve excellence in faith and higher education. She attended Vassar College, where she studied economics, sociology and English, and graduated in 1920. She began a career in teaching before receiving her master’s in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1928. In 1936, she was selected president of Wellesley College, where she advocated for holistic liberal arts education and for social equity in women’s education.

In August 1942, McAfee took a leave of absence from Wellesley to take on a new role as the director of the WAVES program. With many male personnel overseas, McAfee, along with many other women, joined the military to work in domestic positions. She was the first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the Navy Reserve and began her role as director of the Women’s Reserve as a lieutenant commander. She helped develop the rules and structure of the WAVES and the Women’s Reserve, having led over 80,000 women by the end of her military career.

McAfee also advocated for Women’s Reserve personnel to be given equal pay and benefits to male personnel. Her work came to fruition in November 1943 when Public Law 183 was established, formally declaring women’s benefits to be equal to men’s.

In 1943, McAfee was promoted to the rank of captain and continued on as director of the WAVES until the war’s end. She was honorably discharged and resigned from the position, receiving the Distinguished Service Medal, American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal for her service. After leaving the military, she married the Rev. Dr. Douglas Horton, then dean of the Harvard Divinity School.

McAfee retired from her role as president of Wellesley College in 1948, but continued to serve in a variety of board and church positions. She worked as a UNESCO delegate and as a temporary director of the New York Life Insurance Company, and she co-chaired the National Women’s Conference on Civil Rights. Throughout her life, she was awarded more than 31 honorary degrees for her achievements and advocacy work for women’s and civil rights.

In 1994, McAfee died in New Hampshire. She was 94.

We honor her service.

Writer: Sarah McDonald

Editors: Cate Manning, Mary Margaret Brennan

Researcher: John Bergstrom

Graphic Designer: Yasmine Pierce