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W. P. D. Fifth division of the staff is the War Plans Division. Its job: making plans for use of the Army in war, making estimates of the size of the Army needed for any wartime situation. W. P. D.'s top man is longheaded, ambassadorial George Veazey Strong. Like Sherman Miles, he has been as much an Army diplomat as a field soldier, is as much at home in Geneva as he is in Washington. Cavalryman to start, George Strong fought Ute Indians in the West, Moros in the Philippines, went to Tokyo in 1908 as military attache.
He was graduated from Northwestern University's law school, became an Army lawyer before he went overseas in 1918, became a troop movement officer and later a Judge Advocate (Army for lawyer) for the Service of Supply. Later he was professor of law at West Point, adviser to a succession of international military conferences in Geneva between 1925 and 1932. Biggest military feather in his cap: handling of the troop movements of the A. E. F. for the St. Mihiel offensive, of the movements of the Fourth Corps into the Argonne. For this job he got the Distinguished Service Medal. At 60, spectacled General Strong sits at the ornate desk once owned by General Sherman, likes to show visitors its empty whiskey compartment (capacity: 15 quarts).
Deputy. Alter ego of the Chief of Staff is his deputy, who acts as adjutant between the Chief and the rest of the staff and bosses the show when the Chief is away. In the past 14 months, he has made six circuits of the continental U. S., side trips (mostly by air) to Hawaii, Panama, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and his deputy, balding 60-year-old Brigadier General William Bryden, has had plenty to do. Crack Artilleryman Bryden commanded artillery brigades in 1917-18, is the only member of the staff who was a general officer in World War I. When George Marshall called him he was C. O. of the 13th Field Artillery Brigade.
The Chief. Most military men think the U. S. is very lucky in the man who happened to boss its Army A.D. 1940. A stern disciplinarian but no martinet, the Army's Chief of Staff has been a soldier's soldier since the day he left V. M. I. a senior cadet captain and all-Southern tackle. Honor graduate of the old Infantry-Cavalry School in 1907, he showed his administrative stuff as a student in the Staff School, stayed on at Leavenworth as an instructor for three years. General Bell, mightily impressed at the ease with which young Marshall tossed off astute, clearly written orders to cover tactical situations in maneuvers, called him the greatest U. S. military genius since Stonewall Jackson. Modest George Marshall has been trying to forget this heavy praise ever since. But General Bell was not alone in his high opinion. Able, erratic, spectacular General Johnson Hagood once wrote, on a Marshall efficiency report: "This officer [then a lieutenant] is well qualified to command a division with the rank of major general, in time of war, and I would like very much to serve under his command." "Black Jack" Pershing, asked who was the best soldier in the Army, replied, "Colonel Marshall, of course."