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Today's Featured Biography

Homer Hodge

Having failed my senior year in the class of 1959, I graduated with the class of 1960. Interestingly, when I tried to enlist in the Army and then the Marine Corps in 1959, the recruiters told me they would not take me until I graduated! They apparently knew me and had more faith in my abilities than I did. After graduation, I entered the Army hoping to go to Germany; however, I ended up in Korea following a year of intensive Korean language training. In 1963, after returning from Korea, I re-enlisted. Following another year of intensive training in Japanese, I spent a couple of years in Tokyo. After returning to the U.S., I underwent Special Forces, parachute, and jungle training and, upon completion of officer candidate school in 1968, I arrived in Vietnam as a newly minted 2d lieutenant. My year in Vietnam included a lot of “hiking and camping” with the infantry on various combat operations. After Vietnam, I spent two and a half years in Okinawa, this time with my wife and son and saw the birth of my second son there. My assignment there was interesting in that it involved various short training periods in different countries throughout Asia working with indigenous special operations units. In 1972, we moved to Ft Sill, Oklahoma where I served in an artillery battalion, underwent advanced officer training and, after many years of night and weekend classes, finally completed college with a BA. In 1975, with 15 years and four tours in Asia, I went with my family to Germany for three years with another artillery battalion. I like to brag that I became an “expert” on German forests because we spent so much time training in them. Despite that, I managed to travel all over Europe (with the family) and earned an MA in international relations in USC’s Nuremberg campus. Following another 3 years at Ft Bragg, North Carolina, as an instructor in the Special Warfare School, I retired from the Army in 1980, moved to the greater Washington DC area and went to work for Department of Defense in the intelligence field. I spent most of the 1980s on assignment in Korea. After returning to the U.S., I continued my intelligence career with Department of the Army in Washington, DC, and from 1995-2004, in Charlottesville, Virginia. While there I attended University of Virginia and completed all work for a Ph.D. in international relations. Also, during that time, I made 3-5 trips to Hawaii and Asia every year as part of my work assignments. The long-flights and jetlag soon took all the “fun” out of these excursions. Since retiring in 2004, I have moved back to northern Virginia and am currently working as an intelligence consultant with the Department of Defense. Just for fun, I enrolled in and completed Norwich University’s on-line MA in Military History program, and am currently researching and writing a book on the German defense of Normandy, June-August 1944. I’ve made several trips to France and Italy to do research and hope to do more in the future. I guess I could call military history my “hobby.” I also jog regularly and participate in local races (5K, 10K, 10 miles, and an occasional half-marathon) and spend several days a week in a nearby fitness center doing strength and aerobic training with a personal trainer. My marriage ended in divorce in 1990 and I live alone, although I have a “girl friend” and also see my two sons (and grandson and granddaughter) who live in the area fairly frequently.
Although I was raised in California, I’ve now lived so long in Virginia that I consider myself a Virginian. I am within driving distance of most of the eastern Civil War battlefields and that feeds my interest in military history.

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