The Namesake, The Biography of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (HC)

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-honor for any reserve officer.

Robert Walker has written the most sympathetic and first full scale biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. since the publication of his wife s autobiography, Day Before Yesterday, fifty years ago. Utilizing the letters of the Roosevelt family as well as TRJr s military records in both World Wars courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, Walker documents TRJr s courage and fortitude in combat at such a high level that even his father would have envied. Like the former President, TRJr was also a geographical explorer, a collector of rare animals, and a big game hunter. Politics was almost an afterthought. Had the depression not come full force in the 1930s, His Namesake might have become President instead of his fifth cousin. – Larry Madaras, author of “The Public Career of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. “
PhD. Thesis, New York University, 1964.

Robert Wells Walker was born and raised in the small city of Florence, Alabama. After attending the local public schools, a BS degree from the University of Alabama and a two-year stint as a lieutenant in the Army preceded his admission to Law School at Emory University. After earning an LLB degree and passing both the Alabama and Georgia bar exams, he returned to Florence, where he practiced law and raised cattle for the next 36 years. Now retired from law, he still has cattle and cherishes his time spent with his children and grandson. Other pleasures include playing duplicate bridge and fishing in the beautiful Tennessee River.