Strom Thurmond

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In 1941, Thurmond volunteered for the Army in WWII, temporarily leaving his judgeship. As a lieutenant colonel he served with the 82nd Airborne Division by jumping out of airplanes behind enemy lines. In an Army civil affairs unit in 1944, “he landed in France by glider on D-Day and captured German soldiers at pistol point. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the French Croix de Guerre.” Among those medals, “he earned five battle stars and 15 decorations, and other awards for his service” (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Politics/thurmondobit030626.html). Upon his return to the states a war hero, he resigned his judgeship to run for governor in 1946 (Clymer, Adam. The New York Times Co). His service in the Army had gained him notoriety; people respected this 44-year-old judge who risked his life to serve in a war he didn’t have to. In 1947, he defeated 10 other candidates to become South Carolina’s governor until 1951 (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Politics/thurmondobit030626.html).
He didn’t marry until the age of forty. As the South Carolina Governor, he proposed to his secretary, Jean Crouch in a memo stating that she was fired because he had other plans for her (Sheinin, A.G., and Bauerlein). It wouldn’t be until 1968, eight years after his first wife was stricken with cancer, that Thurmond would marry again (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Politics/thurmondobit030626.html). Widower for eight years, he not only gained criticism for marrying Miss South Carolina, Nancy Moore Thurmond at the age of 22, but he also for fathering 4 children well into his seventies (Clymer, Adam. The New York Times Co). It wasn’t until after his death that he publicly become known for fathering a child born to him, at the age of 22, out of wed-lock to his family’s 16-year-old black maid in the early twenties....