Military Review Remembers Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan
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Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the U.S. Army’s thirty-second chief of staff, died 2 January 2024 at the age of eighty-six.
Sullivan began his career as an armor officer in 1959. During his illustrious military career, he served one tour in postwar Korea, two combat tours in Vietnam, and four tours in Europe during the Cold War. He served as the commander of 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division, and later, he commanded the 1st Infantry Division. Sullivan went on to serve as the Army G-3 and the vice chief of staff before being appointed as the chief of staff on 21 June 1991, a position he held for nearly four years. He retired from the Army on 31 June 1995.
As the chief of staff, Sullivan oversaw great changes during a critical time in the Army, including its transformation from the Cold War Army, a massive post-Desert Storm troop reduction of six hundred thousand soldiers, the implementation of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and troop deployments to Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and the Balkans. And in 1993, Sullivan simultaneously assumed the duties of the acting secretary of the Army for three months.
After retirement, Sullivan continued to selflessly serve the Army in a civilian capacity as the president of the Association of the United States Army and the chairman of the board of the Army Historical Foundation. He also served as the president of Norwich University, his alma mater, and he coauthored Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America’s Army with Michael V. Harper, a book that describes the efforts to downsize and transform the post-Cold War Army.
Interment will be held at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery.
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