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<em>John Andrew O'Brien</em>, "OBie" to his classmates, was born in Butte, MT, to John F. and Linda A. O’Brien. His ancestors from Ireland, Austro-Hungary, and Switzerland, came to Butte in 1870, shortly after the discovery of gold and silver.</p>
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OBie attended local parochial schools and graduated with honors from Boys Central High School in 1933. Before coming to West Point in 1936, he attended the Montana School of Mines and Montana State College, where he studied civil engineering and was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.</p>
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He often said the only thing he knew about West Point was what he saw in the movie <em>Flirtation Walk.</em> After recovering from the initial shock and completing Plebe year, he began to enjoy his time as a cadet, even managing to retain his good sense of humor. He wanted to be an athlete but didn’t have the wherewithal to do it. He enjoyed long walks, handball, squash, and ice skating. OBie’s roommate, Paul Kraus, put it best when he said, "His sporadic periods of ‘file boning’ separated by his long rest periods netted him results which were the envy of every ‘goat’ and the chagrin of every ‘engineer.’ "</p>
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After a propaganda pitch from the Coast Artillery Corps, OBie switched from the Infantry and was commissioned in the Coast Artillery, assigned to the 65th CA Regiment (Air Defense) at Ft. Scott, San Francisco, CA. It was there that he met Betty R. Long, U.S. Army Nurse Corps. The two married in August 1941 at the Presidio of San Francisco, and shortly thereafter, WWII was in full bloom.</p>
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His wartime assignments included a tour with the Air Defense OCS at Camp Davis, NC, before being transferred to England, where he was assigned to the Headquarters, Advanced Security Command Zone (ADEC). He was Chief of the Reception and Evacuation Branch of the G-1Division and headed a reconnaissance group that landed on Omaha Beach on D-1. His group worked with the combat elements of the Armies to secure—as rapidly as possible—communication centers, headquarters facilities, and maintenance and living facilities for the supply units of ADSEC, supporting the First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth Armies and the TAC Air Forces in the area. OBie found his job most challenging and most interesting. At the end of the war in Europe, he went to Berlin, where he was assigned to HQ, Office of the Military Government of the U.S. Betty and their son were among the first dependents to arrive in Berlin.</p>
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In 1948, he attended the Artillery School at Ft. Sill. He was then selected to attend the Guided Missile School at Ft. Bliss before his tour as an Instructor at the Armored School, where he was a guided missile and nuclear weapons instructor. He also was Chief of the Tank Gunnery Section. CGSC at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, was next for OBie, followed by an extended tour at Sandia Base, Albuquerque, NM, where he worked with Sandia Corporation on the development of requirements for Nuclear Weapons for the Department of Defense. It was there that he acquired an R & D MOS.</p>
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Obie then had an assignment with the Army Air Defense of New York City, and the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, VA, followed. Next was a short tour to Korea, where he was the Air Defense Advisor to the Republic of Korea Army with the mission of programming them for the reception of the Nike air defense system. Chief of the Materiel Division of the Combat Development Experimentation Center on the staff and faculty at CGSC was next, where he supervised the development of an automated Command and Control System for a Field Army.</p>
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In 1962, OBie was hospitalized for an apparent heart attack. A medical board recommended a disability retirement from the Army; however, he applied for retention and stayed until normal retirement. He was reassigned to the USACDC Nuclear Group at Ft. Bliss, where he again worked in the coordination and development of requirements for operational atomic weapons for the Army.</p>
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He had a short tour as a team chief with the CDEC at Ft. Ord, conducting operational artillery experiments. That job proved to be more than he could physically handle, so he was reassigned to the Air Defense School at Ft. Bliss until retirement in August 1970.</p>
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Upon retirement, Betty and OBie bought a travel trailer and took an extensive tour throughout the western, northwestern, and southwestern parts of the U.S., in order to determine where to live in retirement. Albuquerque was their choice.</p>
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OBie sold real estate for a few years. Continually handicapped with severe angina pectoris, he had triple by-pass surgery of the heart in 1978. It was a very successful operation.</p>
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His wife, Betty R. O’Brien, preceded OBie in death. He is survived by his son, Drew O’Brien; his daughter, Jill A. Bowen; and his grandchildren, Erin, Molly, Colleen, Kevin, Megan, and Patrick O’Brien, and Robbie Bowen.</p>
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Obie’s decorations include the Bronze Star, the Commendation Ribbon with MP, the American European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the WWII Victory Medal, two Army Commendation Medals, and the National Defense Service Medal.</p>
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"Duty, Honor, Country"—all of which we ask in the name of the great friend and master of men! May it be said, "Well done. Be thou at peace."</p>