By Pamela Babcock

When retired Lt. Gen. Julius Becton Jr. M.A. ’67 drafted his autobiography, his publisher sent his 800-page manuscript back with a pointed request. He liked the story, but declared it was “entirely too long.” He told him to cut it. Substantially.

But giving orders to a general is a precarious business, especially when the general is as productive and accomplished as Becton.

“I cut it to 910 pages,” he recalls. “I realized I was going in the wrong direction.” Given more space, Becton’s story might have matched the heft of a Tolstoy novel. Instead, it’s a shorter story of war and peace.

The book, Becton: Autobiography of a Soldier and Public Servant, chronicles his nearly 40-year military career, covering service in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Among Becton’s decorations are the Distinguished Service Medal, two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merit medals and two Purple Hearts.

Becton also served the Reagan administration as director of the Office of Foreign Assistance for the Agency for International Development, was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema), president of a university and superintendent of public schools in Washington, D.C.

Lt. Gen. Julius Becton’s long military career included Officer Candidate School in 1944 (top), a display of horsemanship in 1975 (center) and meeting with top military officers in Israel in 1977 (bottom).

Throughout his career, Becton has adhered to a philosophy of management that covers more than a dozen topics such as maintaining your sense of humor and integrity. “To me, integrity is non-negotiable,” Becton says. “All the others have their place—like, admit mistakes. … I don’t want a bunch of ‘yes’ people around me.”

Last year, Becton received the General George Catlett Marshall Medal—the highest award presented by the association of the U.S. Army. The university also bestowed on him the 2008 President’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for achieving national recognition for excellence in his profession and field.

“He served as a mentor to those who followed his distinguished footsteps,” longtime associate Colin L. Powell, former secretary of state, has said. “I was one of them and would never have risen without his example and help.”

The autobiography is filled with the requisite photos of military regalia, White House dinners with Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and the like. But in typical Becton fashion, it also captures more humorous moments. In one photo, Becton is nearly vertical on a horse that spooked when a bunch of mules reacted to the roar of a military jet during a military demonstration. The next shot shows the pair on the ground.

“The horse didn’t throw me,” Becton tells Terp, unconvincingly. “If you look at the photo, you’ll see I threw the horse.”

Very little could throw Becton. From humble roots, he climbed upward in military and civilian life. The eldest son of a janitor and a domestic worker, Becton grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pa. His father, who had completed only third grade, always wanted Becton to become a doctor, but Becton struggled with science.

After high school, in 1943, Becton enlisted in the then-segregated U.S. Army.

“While I can take risks and spill my blood in defense of democracy, I had to sit in the back of the bus, eat at the counter—in the kitchen, wait in a colored waiting room and drink from the colored-only water fountain,” he once said in a speech.

This July, Becton reflected on 60 years of military integration in a national interview.

“When we entered World War II, we had senior officers who did not think that the black man could fight,” he told NBC Nightly News. “Once you get in a battle or in a foxhole, you couldn’t care less what the race or color of that person is on your right or left. You’re going to watch his back; he’s going to watch your back.”

Becton went on to become the first black infantry company commander in an integrated 2nd Armored Division in 1955 in Germany. In 1978, he assumed command of the 7th Corps in Germany—then the largest in the U.S. Army— whose mission was defending freedom in the central region in nato.

His dedication to country did not end once he left the military.

Becton’s stint at fema stretched from 1985 to 1989, and he says he left the agency “a very close-knit organization of employees who were very happy about what they were doing because someone was giving them respect.”

Then he became president of his undergraduate alma mater, Prairie View A&M University. “They were looking for a butt kicker,” Becton recalls of the financially strapped organization. “We basically turned the school around.”

His most daunting challenge came as superintendent of Washington, D.C.’s, public schools. He knew their potential because his own children had attended system schools in the ’60s.

Becton officially retired in 1998, but serves on numerous corporate and advisory boards. In January, he and his wife, Louise, celebrated their 60th anniversary surrounded by their five children, grandchildren and great grandchildren at a surprise party in Old Town, Alexandria, Va.

But he remains a public servant at heart.

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, he was in Houston for a football game. Evacuees were being sent to the Astrodome, and he headed there to help. He called thenfema Director Michael Brown, who was roundly criticized for the agency’s response, to offer his services. No one returned his call.

“I’m still waiting for a phone call,” Becton says.

Shortly before the general finished his book, he received a letter from Mario Mercado, a soldier he met in the 7th Corps nearly 30 years ago. At the time, Mercado was a medical platoon sergeant. A high school dropout, he went on to earn three master’s degrees and a doctorate in education.

“As a young soldier,” Mercado wrote, “I realized that in motivating soldiers, you engaged their mind and their hearts. It didn’t take me long to realize you were teaching other soldiers that it is good leadership to have a soldier feel part of the entire effort.”

Leading and teaching. That is Becton’s story as a soldier and civilian. TERP

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