Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell, a Democrat from Des Moines will be inducted into the Fort Leavenworth Command and General Staff College Hall of Fame later this month. Boswell, a Vietnam veteran, says he learned of the honor after being asked to give a lecture at the Army college.
Boswell says the night before they had a reception and the commander told him he was nominated and accepted for the hall of fame. “I was quite surprised, I was quite taken back,” Boswell said. Boswell says it’s an honor to be included with others who are in the hall of fame.
He says General Colin Powell and others are among those who are in the hall of fame. “I feel very honored by it, I was a student there and I was a teacher there on my last assignment,” Boswell says. Boswell attended the Command and General Staff College as a student before serving two tours in Vietnam. He says it was exciting, but a little intimidating to be asked to teach there after serving active duty, as only the top 40% of Army officers are invited to the school.
“At least in my day that’s what it was, the top 40% of senior majors, junior lieutenant colonels is kind of what the class was made up of, and there was always a number of foreign officers too,” Boswell says, “so you walk into a room and your were going to teach to 50 or so of people of that category and you really felt you needed to be prepared.”
He says it was exciting and challenging and something he will never forget. Boswell received the Distinguished Flying Cross as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and entered politics in the state legislature. He won a seat in Congress in 1996 and is running for another term. Boswell will be inducted into the hall in a ceremony on May 11th.