Edson, Merritt Austin, 1897-1955

Major General Merritt Austin Edson, Sr. (April 25, 1897 – August 14, 1955), known as "Red Mike", was a general in the United States Marine Corps. Among the decorations he received were the Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, the Silver Star, and two Legions of Merit. He is best known by Marines for the defense of Lunga Ridge during the Guadalcanal Campaign in World War II. He received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Marines in October 1917, and served in France and Germany in World War I. After the war he held several positions until going to flight school in 1922. After graduating flight school and being designated a Naval Aviator, he performed several assignments in Central America and China. It was in Central America where he received his first Navy Cross and the Nicaraguan Medal of Merit with Silver Star. When World War II started Edson was sent as the commanding officer of the Marine Raiders and earned his second Navy Cross on Tulagi. When his unit was sent to fight on Guadalcanal, Edson led his men in fighting for which he would later receive the Medal of Honor.

Major General Merritt Austin Edson, known as "Red Mike," was born in Rutland, Vermont, on 25 April 1897, and reared in Chester, Vermont. He attended the University of Vermont for two years. Military service interrupted, however, and on 27 June 1916, Pvt Edson of the First Vermont National Guard Regiment, was sent to Eagle Pass, Texas, for duty on the Mexican border. He returned to the University in September 1916, but joined the Marine Corps Reserve on 26 June the following year. Thus began a career which was to be characterized by its diversity and distinguished even by the high standards of the Marine Corps. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps on 9 October 1917. In September of the next year he sailed for France with the 11th Marines. This regiment saw no combat, but during the last six months of his European tour, 2dLt Edson commanded Company D, 15th Separate Marine Battalion, which had been organized for the express purpose of assisting in the holding of a plebiscite in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Owing to the failure of the United States to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, this mission, however, was never carried out.