Samuel V. Wilson

Samuel Vaughan Wilson (September 23, 1923 – June 10, 2017), also known as General Sam, was a United States Army lieutenant general who completed his active military career in the fall of 1977, having divided his service almost equally between special operations and intelligence assignments.

He served as 22nd President of Hampden-Sydney College from 1992–2000 and as 5th Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from May 1976-August 1977; for his foundational work in doctrine for low intensity conflict, where he coined the term "counterinsurgency" (COIN); and for facilitating the drafting and passage of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the 1987 Defense Authorization Act, effectively creating the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD/SOLIC). He is also credited with helping to create Delta Force, the U.S. Army's premier counterterrorism unit.

As a general officer, some of his assignments included: Assistant Division Commander (Operations), 82nd Airborne Division; (First) United States Defense Attaché to the Soviet Union, Deputy to the Central Intelligence for the Intelligence Community, and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In his post-military career, he began working at Hampden-Sydney College in 1977, first as a Professor of Political Science, then as its 22nd President, and subsequently as Wheat Professor of Leadership at the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest. Wilson altogether was part of Hampden-Sydney for forty years.

Wilson died from lung cancer on June 10, 2017 in Rice, Virginia, age 93.

A native of Rice, Virginia, Samuel Vaughan Wilson grew up on a tobacco, corn and wheat farm in Southside Virginia hard by the Saylers Creek battlefield, where on 6 April 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia fought its final battle before limping on westward to surrender three days later at Appomattox Courthouse. As a boy, Sam Wilson often rode his pony over the battlefield area looking for the footprint of two armies locked in combat. What still remained of his spare time after arduous farm chores was spent hunting, fishing, reading and pursuing his musical interests. His mother had been a public school teacher, and his father was a ruling elder in the local Presbyterian church. Both parents taught at Sunday school, his mother was his first Sunday School teacher and raised the Wilson siblings in the church. Both parents influenced their children to love books and enjoy reading, especially history.

Sam began his formal education in the fall of 1929, daily walking the two miles one-way to Rice High School and return to the farm. He graduated at the head of his class on 26 May 1940. Two weeks later he jogged seven miles through a rainy night from the family farm to the local National Guard armory, where he added two years to his actual age to qualify and was sworn into military service.

Lieutenant General Wilson is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the Air War College, where he was the distinguished graduate in the Class of 1964. Following World War II, General Wilson studied at Columbia University and in Europe as a member of the US Army Foreign Area Specialist Training Program (FASTP), later known as the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program, mastering several languages and becoming a specialist on the former Soviet Union. He has attended a number of night schools, taken numerous correspondence courses and is the recipient of several honorary degrees.

Sam Wilson joined the 116th Infantry Regiment, (Virginia National Guard) as a 16-year-old private bugler in June 1940. By early 1942, he had become successively a squad leader, platoon sergeant and acting first sergeant before being sent to Infantry Officer Candidate School (OCS), where he graduated as an 18-year-old second lieutenant at the head of his class and was selected to remain at The Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, as an instructor.