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The writer first became intimate with <em>Herbert O’Leary</em> in his later years when his judgment had matured and his great ability had earned his reputation as an outstanding Ordnance Officer. A man intolerant to ill-advised and uncoordinated directives and resenting control from those whom he felt were unfamiliar with the problems of Ordnance, he was essentially a fighter, a fighter for what he believed right yet with a mellow tolerance toward Inability that made him an outstanding man under whom to serve. He was respected by his seniors, liked and admired by his contemporaries and loved by his juniors. He would fight vigorously for a subordinate whom he felt was performing his work to the best of his ability, yet he could be tough and drastic toward a junior whom he felt was loafing on the job and not doing the best his capabilities allowed. No man could deflate a stuffed shirt more effectively when the occasion demanded, yet even his intimates seldom knew when Herbert’s sarcasm was really meant and when he was merely exercising his rather sardonic sense of humor. At the Post where the writer first became Intimate with him, he was deeply respected by the higher command but the junior officers on the Post felt that he was above all their champion. Under his leadership for the first time they had a real voice in the conducting of the Officers’ Club of which he was President and the long waiting list of non-resident applicants for membership bore eloquent testimony to the success of his administration.</p>
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He was born in Waupun, Wisconsin, December 22, 1885, the oldest of six children. He attended local schools and for a time taught in a small Wisconsin town until he was appointed to the Academy by Congressman Jenkins of the Eighth Congressional District. At the Academy he did not distinguish himself particularly, although he was in the upper bracket of his class. He was well liked by his classmates, but he possessed an intimate reserve which prevented him from forming many especially intimate relationships. He graduated on June 15, 1910, as a Second Lieutenant of the Coast Artillery Corps. He served at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and at the Coast Defenses of Puget Sound until he was recalled to the Military Academy as an instructor in the Department of Philosophy in 1913. Three years later, he was made a First Lieutenant in the Ordnance Department by detail and served for a year at Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts, and was then transferred to the Office, Chief of Ordnance in Washington. He was made a Captain in 1917 and a Major on January 10, 1918. In April of that year he was sent to France for five months as a military observer, returning to Washington in October 1918 where he was made Chief of the Small Arms Division. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on October 2, 1918, but reverted to his permanent grade of Captain on June 30, 1920. On the following day he was promoted to the grade of Major, Coast Artillery Corps and in September of that year he said farewell to the. Coast Artillery and transferred to the Ordnance Department where he served for the balance of his life.</p>
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After four years as Chief of the Small Arms Division, Office, Chief of Ordnance, he went to Fort Benning on July 1, 1922 as Ordnance Officer and Ordnance representative on the Infantry Board. He occupied this position two years, then was transferred back to the Office, Chief of Ordnance, again in the Small Arms Division, for another two-year tour. On July 9, 1926 he carried his knowledge of Small Arms to Springfield Armory where he was engaged in manufacturing and development work. After three and one-half years of this work, in December 1929 he went to the Canal Zone, serving in the old Panama Ordnance Depot, later to become the Ordnance Section of the Panama Pacific General Depot. In June 1932 he returned to the United States to command the Erie Ordnance Depot at La Carne, Ohio, for two years. In 1934 he started a four-year tour as Ordnance Officer of the Fifth Corps Area at Fort Hayes, Ohio, receiving his silver leaves on November 1, 1934. In 1938 he felt the call of the tropics and started his second tour in the Canal Zone, this time as Commanding Officer of the Ordnance Section, Panama Pacific General Depot. He was promoted to Colonel on May 1, 1939. After three years in Panama, he returned to the United States where, after a short tour in the Office, Chief of Ordnance, he was assigned in 1943 as Commanding Officer of Benicia Arsenal, California. He arrived there during a period of great expansion and made a remarkable record in building up Benicia Arsenal to the point where it would carry the enormous load that the war in the Pacific threw upon it. He was liked equally well by his junior officers and by the civilian employees and it was a matter of great regret, both to him and to them, when he was ordered to Governors Island early in 1944 as Ordnance Officer of the Second Service Command, a position which he occupied until the time of his death.</p>
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He was married in 1930 to Evelyn Fletcher, the widow of Vernon S. Fletcher. His married life was an unusually happy one and years later when Barbara, Mrs. O’Leary’s daughter by her first marriage, grew up he legally adopted her, changing her name to O’Leary. The last few months of his life were sad ones both for him and his friends as he was suffering severely from the disease which later caused his death. He died on July 2,1944, while a patient at the Waller Reed General Hospital, Washington, D. C., and was interred in Arlington Cemetery. Besides his widow and daughter, he was survived by two sisters, Mrs. Alfred Shannon, Hammond, Wisconsin, and Mrs. V. A. Conrad, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and a brother, Don O’Leary of Elroy, Wisconsin.</p>
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It is hard for us who knew him well to realize he is gone. We no longer can bring problems, both official and personal, to him to have the light of his experience and wisdom thrown upon them. If Herbert had one weakness, it was due to the fact that he was not only an unusually fine planner and co-ordinator of broad schemes but also had a tremendous capacity for detail work. He had a dominant passion for perfection and accuracy in his work and this feeling together with his almost unlimited capacity for work made him prone to do too much himself, to work overtime, spending evenings at the office instead of delegating much of this work to subordinates at some loss in speed and perfection. Few men knew Herbert O’Leary who did not feel that they had learned much from him, that they had profited from his acquaintance, and to those of us who penetrated his reserve and became intimate friends, his loss is a deep and personal thing. His passing left a void which cannot be filled.</p>