US ARMY
Lieutenant General Nadja Yudith West (née Grammer; March 20, 1961) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general and was the 44th U.S. Army Surgeon General. She was a former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Command. West is the first black Army Surgeon General, the first black female active-duty major general, the first black female major general in Army Medicine, and the first Army black female lieutenant general. She is the highest ranking woman to have graduated from the United States Military Academy. West joined the Army because “I come from a military family. I kind of grew up eating, drinking, breathing, living Army. My dad was in — he joined the Army in 1939, when the Army was segregated, and stayed in for 33 years.” She is a Karlsruhe BRAT.
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US ARMY
Lieutenant General Thomas Seamands was the Army’s 48th Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1. He attended SHAPE International School in junior high.
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SINGER SONGWRITER
Lionel Richie is an Army Brat. His father was a US Army Captain.
Richie was the lead singer for the Commodores and began his solo career in 1982. He has since won many music awards including three Grammys, several American Music Awards and an Oscar awarded in 1986 for Best Original song, “Say You, Say Me,” the theme to the film: “White Knights.”
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US AIR FORCE, SPACE SHUTTLE ASTRONAUT
Lt. Col. Michael Anderson -USAF/NASA Astronaut. Michael Anderson was an Air Force brat. He was lost along with the six other NASA astronauts when the space shuttle Columbia broke up upon re-entry to earth on Saturday, February 1, 2003. In a previously published interview Lt. Col. Anderson related, “My dad was in the Air Force. And you know, being an Air Force brat and living on Air Force bases, I was always around airplanes. And, that was something else that really captured my imagination, just seeing airplanes, you know taking off and landing every day, and flying over the house, and making all of this noise just was a fascinating thing to me as a kid. So, my interest in aviation and my interest in science were, I guess, two of the things I really latched on to, and two things that I just couldn’t shake as I grew older.”
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US AIR FORCE, SPACE SHUTTLE ASTRONAUT
Lt. Col. Searfoss is a Military Brat. His father is a retired colonel.
Information from: R. A. Searfoss and NASA Astronaut Bios.
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US AIR FORCE, SPACE SHUTTLE ASTRONAUT
Lt. Col. Susan Helms is an Air Force Brat. Her father is a retired USAF Lt. Col.
Info From: Lt. Col. S. J. Helms & NASA Astronaut Bios
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US AIR FORCE
Lt. General Clapper is an Army Brat and an Overseas Brat. He graduated from Nurenburg AHS, Nurenburg, Germany, Class of 1959. He is also a University of Maryland-Munich Alumnus.
General Clapper started his military career as an enlistee in the Marine Corps. He then switched to the AF Officer’s Candidate School and became a career AF officer.
He was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1991-95 when he retired from the Air Force. Following six years in private industry, in 2001 he became head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency under Homeland Security, a position he currently holds. (Updated Nov 2005)
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US AIR FORCE
Lt. General Thomas C. Waskow attended London Central at Bushey Hall from 1962-65. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1970. He retired from the Air Force in 2005. He had been the Commanding Officer for U.S. Air Forces in Japan.
Waskow, a command pilot, logged more than. 4,700 flying hours with 904 hours of combat flying. He flew 2,200 in the F-15 Eagle.
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AUTHOR
Lucian Truscott IV is an Overseas School Alumnus and an Army Brat. His Father was an Army Officer. He attended schools in Stuttgart and Oberammergau.
His books include: “The Boys of St. Julien,” “Dress Gray,” “Full Dress Gray,” “Dress Blue,” “The Heart of War,” and “Rules of the Road: A Novel.”
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ACTRESS
Madolyn Smith is an Overseas School Alumnus and was a member of the International School of Bangkok Class of ’75 where she attended school 1969-1972.
She is known for her roles in “Urban Cowboy” (with John Travolta) in 1980 and “Funny Farm.”
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MISS USA 1984
Mai Shanley Fitzgerald is a Military Brat and an Overseas School Alumnus. She graduated as a member of the Class of 1981 of Woodbridge American HS in England and also attended Grade School at J.M. Wainwright School, Taiwan.
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US AIR FORCE
Major General David Scott Gray, USAF, graduated from SHAPE American High School in 1972.
General Scott Gray is a graduate of the University of Alabama. He served as Commander of the 86th Airlift Wing at Andrews AFB from July 2003 to May 2005. In May 2005, he became Commander, Air Mobility Warfare Center at Ft. Dix, NJ. (Updated Nov 2005)
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US ARMY
Major General “Buff” Blount has been serving as the Army’s Deputy G-3 since October 2003. Previously he was the Commanding General, 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield. MG Blount gave up command of the 3rd ID after bringing them home from Iraq where they were the lead force in capturing Baghdad. MG Blount is a 1966 graduate of London Central High School.
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SPACE SHUTTLE ASTRONAUT
Marc Garneau is a Canadian army brat and Overseas School Alumnus. His family was stationed in Germany and England.
Garneau has flown on several shuttle missions since 1984.
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ACTRESS
Marcia Gay Harden nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2001, is a Navy Brat and Overseas Brat who grew up in Japan, Germany, Texas and New York. As per the Washington Post 02/21/2001.
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STAGE, FILM, TELEVISION ACTOR
Stage, film, and television star, Marcus Calvin graduated from Frankfurt American High School in 1983. After completing two years with the University of Maryland (1985) in Munich, Germany, he won a full scholarship from the government of Germany to attend the Otto-Faleckenberg-Schule for the Performing Arts (1989). Marcus has over fifty films and TV appearances to his credit along with the title character of the hit TV show “War Was Rickie”.
On the German stage Marcus has performed in more than seventy productions among them the title roles in productions of Little Shop of Horrors, Twelth Night, Macbeth, Angels in America, Dong Juan, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Tartuffe. After being in Ensemble Companies in City, National and State Theatres in Germany for twenty-two years, he is now a freelance actor working independently. Living in Germany, Marcus is married and has three children
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FILM ACTOR
Mark Hamill is a Military Brat and an Overseas School Alumnus.
Hamill attended Kinnick High School (Yo-Hi) in Yokohama, Japan. He graduated as a member of the Class of ’69. He was voted the school’s best all around and most talented student and served as student council president.
No surprise, but he was involved in drama productions while attending the school.
Mark Hamill is best known as Luke Skywalker in several of the Star Wars Movies.
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TV REPORTER, ACTOR
Born in San Antonio , TX , Sept. 16, 1954, Mark McEwen was an Air Force Brat and Overseas Alumnus. He often mentioned growing up at Travis AFB (CA). He also lived in Berlin , Germany ; Montgomery , AL and Crownsville , MD.
McEwen retired as Weatherman from the CBS Early Show after 16 years in 2002. His reporting included many other areas while he was at CBS. He was named one of the “Ten Most Trusted TV News Personalities” by TV Guide in 1995. He became a news anchor for a local TV station in Orlando but suffered a stroke in November 2005.
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DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKER
Marlon Riggs was an Army Brat who attended Nurnberg HS 1972-73 & Ansbach HS 1973-74
Marlon Riggs was known for making insightful and controversial documentary films confronting racism and homophobia that thrust him onto center stage in America’s “cultural wars.”
Riggs’ first major work, Ethnic Notions (58 min, 1987), traced the evolution of the racial stereotypes which have implanted themselves deep into the American psyche across 150 years of U.S. history. The documentary received a National Emmy Award and other top film festival honors and has become a core audio-visual “text” in a wide range of courses.
Marlon’s second major work, Tongues Untied (58 min, 1989), a moving, highly personal, sometimes angry, always poignant documentary was the first frank discussion of the black, gay experience on television. Though acclaimed by critics and awarded Best Documentary at Berlin and other film festivals, its broadcast by the PBS series P.O.V. was immediately pounced upon by the Religious Right as a symbol of everything wrong with public funding for art and culture, particularly culture outside the mainstream political debate.”
Marlon’s own next major work, Color Adjustment (86 min, 1991), traced over 40 years of the representations of African Americans through the distorting prism of prime time television, from Amos ‘n’ Andy to Cosby. Color Adjustment garnered television’s highest accolade, the George Foster Peabody Award, among other awards. That same year the American Film Institute granted Riggs their Maya Daren Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marlon Riggs died of AIDS in 1994.
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AUTHOR & REPORTER
Mary Edwards Werstch is a military brat. Her father was an Army Officer.
Wertsch’s Book: “Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress” is considered to be the seminal book on growing up and forever being a “military brat.”
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ACTRESS
Mary-Louise Parker is an Army Brat who was born August 2, 1964 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
She has appeared in movies such as Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon (1991), Naked in New York (1994), the romantic comedy Mr. Wonderful (1993), Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway(1994), and the Jane Campion Adaptation of Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady (1996).
She currently has a recurring role in the popular television series “West Wing.”
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Choreographer
Mayte Garcia-Nelson is an Army Brat and an Overseas School Alumnus. She graduated from Gen. H.H. Arnold High School in Wiesbaden, Class of 1991.
Garcia-Nelson is married to the Artist formerly known as “Prince.” She has produced numerous artistic dance programs that have been showcased throughout the United States.
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ASTRONAUT
(Katherine) Megan McArthur was the Mission Specialist for space shuttle mission STS-125, working as flight engineer and robotic arm operator during maintenance work on the Hubble Space Telescope, and she was the Pilot of the NASA SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station. Megan attended London Central High School.
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US WOMEN’S SOCCER TEAM 1999 WORLD CUP
Mia Hamm is a Military Brat and Overseas School Alumnus.
Mia Hamm was one of the stars of the US Women’s soccer team that won the World Cup in 1999.
When her father was stationed in Germany Mia, age 5, wanted to play soccer, but at the time there were only boys teams so Mia had to play with the boys.
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