The Association of the U.S. Army awarded its highest honor for selfless service to retired General Eric Shinseki ’65, a former Army chief of staff and former secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The 80-year-old Hawaii native received AUSA’s George Catlett Marshall Medal Oct. 11, the final day of the association’s 2023 Annual Meeting and Exposition, saying he was “deeply humbled” to receive the award. The Marshall Medal is named for the Army officer and statesman who led the Army, the State Department and Defense Department.
Shinseki, born one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, said, “I don’t come from a military family,” yet he feels “I’ve been a soldier most of my life.”
His first exposure to soldiers came from men in his family who served in the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. He recalls that they were young and robust, “flush with confidence in a sense of having done something big.”
