John M Shalikashvili

Born in Warsaw in 1936 to a Georgian officer in exile, he came to America at sixteen speaking no English and learned it, he said, from John Wayne films. Drafted as a private in 1958 and commissioned from officer candidate school. He served in Vietnam as an adviser, commanded a field artillery battalion and the 9th Infantry Division, and in 1991 led Operation Provide Comfort, which brought half a million Kurds down from the mountains of northern Iraq. Supreme Allied Commander Europe, then the thirteenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997 - the only foreign-born man ever to hold the post. He is buried at Arlington.