At seven, Anthony B Herbert knew how to hunt, fish and trap. It wasn’t for sport — it was for food. When he was eight he settled on his future, He would be a soldier. Not just any soldier, but the best soldier in the military.
With World War Two raging on every continent, Anthony B Herbert wanted to get into the fight, so he used a doctored baptismal certificate to join the marines at 14. They caught him on his way to boot camp.
Three years later, he dropped out of high school to become a paratrooper in the elite 82nd Airborne.
It was when the President named him the most decorated soldier of the Korean War that validated Tony’s mission to be the “best soldier in the Army.”
He continued to serve and learn, rising through the ranks to become a Lieutenant Colonel while getting his doctorate in psychology.
As a combat commander in Vietnam he continued his outstanding heroics and leadership, leading “the best battalion in Vietnam” as well as racking up numerous awards for heroism under fire.
But when Anthony B Herbert refused to cover up war crimes, the army he loved turned on him. They tried everything from humiliation to bribes, but Herbert stood his ground.
After 22 years, he was forced to resign.
It devastated him but he soldiered on, taking his message to the streets of America, fighting for truth and to better the army that he loved so much.
Through it all, Herbert became best-selling author, a doctor, and a living symbol for truth and principle, but his soul was fractured by the loss of his beloved army.
Facing death from cancer in 2014, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony B Herbert demanded that he be moved from the hospital to a veteran’s home so “he could die with other soldiers who served.”
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony B Herbert, the soldier’s soldier, was buried with full honors at Arlington Cemetery on February 9, 2015.
He would have decried the use of troops for ceremonial duties, especially his funeral, as a waste of good resources.