I lost my cousin Bill recently. He was quite a star in my mother's family. Cousin Bill was her contemporary, not mine. By the time I joined the Air Force, he was a Sergeant Major serving in the Pentagon. I got the notice from Cousin Mary this morning. The Old Guard is passing. I wonder if we will serve their memory as well as they served to make our lives what they are today.
Pvt Williamm O Wooldridge
Sergeant Major of the Army William O Woodldridge & wife Patty in Saigon (1969)
Sergeant Wooldridge at "Wooldridge Day" in Brownwood Texas
At the Sgts Major Academy in El Paso.
William O. Wooldridge, who was the first man chosen as Sergeant Major of the Army and lived in retirement in the El Paso area, died at Beaumont Army Medical Center, a Fort Bliss official said today. Wooldridge was 89.
Sergeant Major of the Army is the Army's highest enlisted rank and a Pentagon-level position.
Sgt. Maj. Raymond F. Chandler III, the current Sergeant Major of the Army, offered his condolences on his Facebook page.
"SMA Wooldridge was a one of a kind Noncommissioned Officer, selected to be the first Sergeant Major of the Army because of his initiative, intelligence, experience and drive to excel," Chandler stated. "His lasting impression lives on in the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy, the centralized NCO promotion system, and our professional NCO Corps . He was an innovator, a true inspiration to soldiers, and the epitome of a professional warrior," he wrote.
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