Lt gen george flynn biography sampler
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Lore of the Corps: Judge Advocates in the Great War
Major Victor E. Ruehl served as a Division Judge Advocate in the AEF. His official identity card—in both English and French—is shown here.
Lore of the Corps
Judge Advocates in the Great War
By Fred L. Borch
When the Congress declared war on Germany and the other Central Powers on 6 April 1917, America’s Army was ill-prepared to fight what would later be called the “Great War.” After all, the entire Army consisted of 125,000 Regular Army Soldiers and 67,000 National Guardsmen along the Mexican border. Moreover, the Army was built around regiments; larger units such as divisions, corps, and armies existed only on paper. But, by the time what we now call World War I ended, on 11 November 1918—just nineteen months later—the Army had grown to 3.7 million, with two million men serving in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France.
As for the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAGD), as the Corps was then known, it underwent a similar transformation in size and organization: from seventeen officers, four of whom were working in Washington, D.C., to an unprecedented 426 judge advocates by December 1918. For the first time, the Judge Advocate General was given the rank and pay of a major general (he had worn a single st
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Mr. Alan R. Shaffer served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S) from January 2019 to January 20, 2021. Senate confirmed in January 2019, he was responsible to the Under Secretary of Defense (A&S) for all matters pertaining to acquisition; contract administration; logistics and materiel readiness; installations and environment; operational energy; chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; the acquisition workforce; and the defense industrial base.
From 2015 to 2018, Mr. Shaffer served as the Director, NATO Collaboration Support Office in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating and synchronizing the Science and Technology (S&T) collaboration between NATO member and partner Nations, comprising a network of about 5,000 scientists.
Previous to his role at NATO, Mr. Shaffer served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) from 2007-2015. In this position, Mr. Shaffer was responsible for formulating, planning and reviewing the DoD Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) programs, plans, strategy, priorities, and execution of the DoD RDT&E budget that totals roughly $25 billion per year. He also served twice as the
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