Howard D. Graves

Graves was born in Roaring Springs, Texas, the only child of Tommy J. and Velma Lee Clifton Graves. He almost drowned trying to baptise a cat in a pond behind their home but was revived at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp that was close to their rural home. After spending his youth in Amarillo, Texas, and graduating from Amarillo High School in 1957, Graves received an appointment to West Point as a member of the class of 1961. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Engineer branch in 1961. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship and spent the first three years of his military career at the University of Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964, an MA in 1968 and an MLitt in 1971.[2]

On returning to the United States after his first tour at the University of Oxford, he joined the 82nd Airborne Division, where in 1965 he commanded an engineer company in the Dominican Republic. He saw combat in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, where he was an Engineer Battalion S-3 and assistant division engineer for the First Cavalry Division. After his second tour at the University of Oxford, Graves returned to West Point in 1970. He was assigned to the Department of Social Sciences, where he taught international relations and comparative foreign governments.[2]

In 1974, Graves was appointed military assistant to the Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger. His duties included coordinating Schlesinger's travel and public appearances, preparing briefings and speeches for Congressional hearings, and providing counsel on matters affecting the U.S. Army. In 1976, Graves took command of the 54th Engineer Battalion in West Germany, returning to the United States in 1978 to attend the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.[1] In 1980, Graves took command of the 20th Engineer Brigade. He then joined the First Infantry Division in 1982 as the assistant division commander. The next year, Graves was appointed deputy chief of staff, engineer, U.S. Army Forces Command. In 1984, Graves was promoted to brigadier general and became deputy director for strategy, plans, and policy, of the Army Staff. The next year he was promoted to vice director of the Joint Staff. In 1987, Graves succeeded James E. Thompson Jr. as commandant of the Army War College. Lieutenant General Graves then returned to Washington, D.C., to become assistant to the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1991, Graves was appointed the 54th superintendent of the United States Military Academy, a position he held until his retirement in 1996.[2]

Graves later joined the Harry Guggenheim Foundation as a director and in 1998 was a visiting professor, at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Service at the University of Texas. In 1999, he was selected to be the 11th chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. During his tenure as chancellor, Texas A&M added three new universities to its system: Texas A&M University–San Antonio, Tarleton State University–Central Texas in Killeen, and West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.[3] Graves lived with cancer for several years, dying from the disease at his home in College Station, Texas, on September 13, 2003. He is survived by his wife, Gracie Newman Graves, son, Colonel Gregory Howard Graves, who is also a graduate of West Point (class of 1988), and wife Wya Graves, daughter Gigi Graves Kail and husband the late Colonel Eric Kail, who was an army officer. He is interred at the West Point Cemetery.[4]