The Namesake, the Biography of Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

Except for Douglas MacArthur, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. is the most decorated soldier in American history, having earned his Congressional Medal of Honor and every other medal offered by the United States to the foot soldier for combat heroism. As a young man, he wanted to have a career in the military, but his father, President Theodore Roosevelt, discouraged this. Ted went to Harvard, and dreamed of one day following his father into the White House. Things did not go well for him politically; he had only two one-year terms in the New York State Assembly and a failed run for the New York Governorship. Other positions held in his working life included: carpet salesman, bond salesman, investment banker, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, big game hunter, Governor General of Puerto Rico, Governor General of the Phillipine Islands, and editor and VP at Doubleday Publishing Co. Yet the army was where his niche obviously lay: he served as Battalion Commander in WWI; after the Armistice, he and four other non-career officers founded The American Legion, as it exists today. After seeing combat in North Africa, Sicily and Italy (under Eisenhower) during WWII, he assisted in the preparation for D-Day. On Utah Beach in Normandy, under enemy fire for hours, Roosevelt served as assistant Division Commander of the 4th Infantry Division. His death, some weeks after D-Day, came just before he was to be promoted to Major General, an unheard-of-honour for any reserve officer.