Mickey Marcus 1901-1948

The first soldier buried at West Point who died fighting under the flag of another country, David Marcus was a U.S. Army colonel who played a leading role in building Israel's army. Marcus became commander of the U.S. Army's Ranger School in 1942 and later was among the U.S. troops parachuted into Normandy on the eve of D-Day with the 101st Airborne Division. In 1948, Israel's underground army, the Haganah, asked him to help recruit an American officer to train Israeli soldiers who would fight in Israel's War of Independence. He took the position himself, and was appointed commander of the Jerusalem front and became the first officer to receive the rank of aluf, or general, in Israel's army. He was killed just hours before the war's ceasefire.