Parks, Floyd Lavinius, 1896-1959

Floyd L. Parks was born in Louisville, Kentucky on February 9, 1896. He received a BS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Clemson College in 1918, and an MS in Engineering from Yale University in 1924. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army in 1918 and served in the following positions: From 1918 to 1923, Machine Gun Instructor under Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding Camp Colt, Pennsylvania; Commanding Officer, Co. A, 333 Tank Battalion, Camp Colt; and Commanded Tank Corps Reserve Officers Training Camp, Camp Colt. Additionally, he served as Commanding Officer, Company A, 21st Infantry, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, 1927; Aide-de-Camp to General William R. Smith, Commanding General of U.S. Military Academy, 1928 to 1932; graduated from Infantry School, 1933; graduated from Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1935; served as Aide-de-Camp to Chief of Staff of the Army, General Malin Craig, 1937 to 1939; graduated from Army War College, 1940; served as Chief of Staff, Army Ground Forces, 1942; Assistant Division Commander, 69th Inf. Div (Camp Shelby, Mississippi, under Charlie Bolte), 1943 to 1944; Chief of Staff, First Allied Airborne Army (under L. Brereton), 1944 to 1945; Commander, First Airborne Army, May to October 1945; Commander, U.S. Sector and Military Governor, Berlin, July to October 1945; Chief, Public Information Division, Department of the Army in Washington, D.C., 1945 to 1948; Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army, Pacific Theater (Hawaii), 1948 to 1949; Chief of Information for Department of the Army in Washington, D.C., 1949 to 1953; and Commanding General, 2nd Army, 1953 to 1956. Parks retired as Lt. General from the Army in 1956. Parks served as Executive Director of the National Rifle Association, after his retirement in March 1956. He had two marriages and four children; he married Molly Mitchel Trewbridge in 1924 but they divorced in 1927; and he married Harriet Marie Appleby-Robinson in 1931. He died on March 10, 1959.