|
Colonel Bill McWilliams, USAF
(ret.) “received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, through competitive examinations
in the third congressional district of Colorado. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, and during a career of service
in the Air Force, earned a Master of Science degree in Business Administration from The George Washington University while
attending the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, AL. He later attended the U.S. Army War College in
Carlisle Barracks, PA, where he completed ten months of senior management training, equivalent to a masters degree in public
administration. His Air Force service included assignments
as: a flight and classroom instructor in undergraduate pilot training and fighter training; a seven month combat tour in the
Republic of Vietnam where he flew 128 fighter-bomber close support and interdiction missions; and a United States Air Force
Academy Air Officer Commanding and flight instructor for cadets receiving familiarization training in light aircraft. Later
he served in the Republic of Korea for two years, and at the Air Force Tactical Fighter Weapons Center in Las Vegas, NV. After
leaving the Air Force he served more than eight years in systems engineering and management positions in industry, including
a concept development study for the integrated defense systems for the Air Force’s newest fighter, the F-22 Raptor;
systems engineering for the missile sight on the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the ground mapping and navigation
sensors for the Navy’s Tomahawk Cruise Missile; management system evaluation and auditing in various production programs,
including Hughes Aircraft Company’s satellite production program.”
Colonel Bill McWilliams is the
author of Return to Glory: The Untold Story of Honor, Dishonor & Triumph at the United States Military Academy,
1950-53 and On Hallowed Ground: The Last Battle for Pork Chop Hill.
According to the book description
of On Hallowed Ground: The Last Battle for Pork Chop Hill, “Evoking all the powerful emotions
of a frustrating, bitter, bloody, stalemated Korean War, Bill McWilliams takes readers into the trenches and bunkers of Pork
Chop Hill with the men of the 7th Infantry Division’s 17th and 32nd Regiments as they withstand repeated assaults by
the Chinese in July 1953. Their individual accounts of small victories and defeats, fear and valor bring alive the final battle
for the hill. While a popular movie starring Gregory Peck made Pork Chop Hill a public legend, only one other book has been
written about the subject and it focuses on earlier assaults. This book includes the never-before-told stories of the riflemen,
machine gunners, forward observers, sergeants, platoon leaders, and medics whose heroic efforts helped hold the hill and produced
two Medals of Honor and ten Distinguished Service Crosses, some awarded posthumously. The author succeeds at giving the reader both a feeling of being in the midst of the fighting
and stepping back to view the bigger picture. He blends official documents, personal letters, interviews, oral histories,
and other sources, to acquaint readers with the first three years of the war and prior assaults on Pork Chop and highlights
the contributions made by combat support units and others to the mission. As the narrative progresses the whys of battlefield
decisions become evident with an examination of the influence of national policies, protracted truce negotiations, a fledgling
South Korean democracy, and the evolving American military policy of active defense, providing painful lessons for America’s
future struggles. Published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army, the book pays tribute to the greatest
testing ground of U.S. soldier resolve since Valley Forge.”
|
|
 |
|
According to the book description of
Return to Glory: The Untold Story of Honor, Dishonor & Triumph at the United States Military Academy,
1950-53, “Now the basis for the made-for-television ESPN Original Entertainment movie "Codebreakers" (premiering
at 9 P.M Eastern Time on 10 December 2005), A Return to Glory is the first book to bring readers behind closed doors at West
Point during the unprecedented, widely controversial, tragic cheating episode of 1951. Told with great precision and keen insight, A Return to Glory fuses the intertwined
struggles for officers and cadets to maintain honorable conduct on the athletic field with the challenges to officers and
enlisted men on the battlefields of Korea, the Cold War’s first frustrating and deadly "limited war." The
parallels and corollaries are astounding and often profound. The book also tells one of the great, never-before-told
collegiate football stories of the twentieth century, namely the inspiring true story of how the vaunted Army football team—nationally
dominant during much of the decade preceding the incident—recovered from losing almost 40 players in the devastating
cheating scandal of 1951.
Timeless and compelling, A Return
to Glory is as surprising and meaningful for today's readers as it will be for those who lived the events of a half century
ago. Both a period history and lively true story, the book tells of authentic and unsung heroes and young men attempting to
live up to the extraordinarily high standards demanded by the Academy and its Honor Code. While the work
accurately portrays the joys, rewards, and tragedies of life in the military, it also tells thought-provoking, often humorous,
uplifting stories about people and institutions, "warts and all," woven into a larger story and theme, with deliberately
broad appeal intended to reach the general public. Most importantly, in a new age of desperate battles that challenge the integrity of military leaders on and off today’s
battlefields, A Return to Glory tells the inspirational story of some of their Army forebears who selflessly chose the harder
right over the easier wrong...and prevailed.”
|
|
|
|
|
