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Julian Ewell

Julian Ewell (5 November 1915 – 27 July 2009) was a US Army Lieutenant-General during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

Biography[]

Julian Ewell was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1915, and he graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute and West Point before becoming a US Army second lieutenant in 1939. During World War II, he commanded a battalion of the US 101st Airborne Division, taking part in Operation Overlord as a paratrooper. He later commanded the US 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment in Operation Market Garden and the Siege of Bastogne, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bastogne. He went on to command another regiment during the Korean War, and, during the Vietnam War, he was given command of the US 9th Infantry Division from 1968 to 1969 and II Field Force from 1969 to 1970. He was a controversial figure, as he supported using the body count as the measure of success, leading to 7,000 civilians being killed during Operation Speedy Express and counted as killed enemy combatants. Nobody was ever held responsible for the massacre of innocent Vietnamese civilians, and Ewell was instead promoted to Major-General and later to Lieutenant-General. He retired in 1973, and he died in Fairfax, Virginia in 2009 at the age of 93.

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