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<em>Francis Ludwick Sward</em> was born at Axtell, Kearney County, Nebraska, on November 16, 1882, the son of the late John and Marie Streed Sward. After graduation, in 1904, from the University of Nebraska where he received his degree in law, he was appointed to the Military Academy as a member of the Class of 1908. At West Point he was promptly named ‘'Tommy,” for some reason long since lost in the annals of the past. Tommy's record at the Academy shows that he was selected for a "make” in each year: cadet corporal as a yearling cadet, quartermaster sergeant as a second classman, and cadet lieutenant in his final year. In athletics, he made the track team and was a member of the polo squad. The Howitzer said of him: “If you had something you wanted done, done well, and you wanted to be certain that it would be done, to whom would you go? Why, to Sward.” Seldom do men, young men, and especially soldier men, go wrong on their estimate of one of their fellows; the Class of 1908 dubbed Tommy, “trustworthy, careful, reliable, and lovable.”</p>
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Sward, on graduation, on February 14, 1908, was assigned as second lieutenant with the 26th Infantry, his first post being Camp Daraga, Luzon, Philippine Islands. Returning with his regiment to Fort Wayne, Michigan, he was stationed there with the usual intervals of detached service, until he resigned on January 11, 1913. Resignation from the regular army, however, did not end his connection with the service; for, less than a month after he resigned, he became first lieutenant and adjutant of the 31st Michigan Infantry, being promoted to major in June, 1916. In May, 1917, he became a major of the Officers’ Reserve Corps, in which capacity he entered on active duty on May 14, 1917. He served in World War I, first at Fort Sheridan as Instructor in the First Officers’ Training Camp and, later, with the 338th InCamp and, later, with the 338th Infantry, 85th Division, and with the 310th Military Police. In Cosne, France, he organized and commanded the classification camps at the 4th Depot Division, and at Camp Ford, on which latter duty he was when the Armistice was signed. After the armistice, he served as Secretary to the General Staff and Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, IX Army Corps, being later transferred back again to the 85th Division in which the was assigned to the 340th Infantry. On May 12, 1923, four years after his return home, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, Infantry reserve.</p>
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After resigning from the regular army, Sward had made his home in Detroit where he took up the practice of law. Upon demobilization of our war-time army, it was to Detroit that he returned to resume his profession and to continue In it until shortly before his death on January 5, 1939. In 1920, he was appointed by the late Senator James Couzens, then mayor of Detroit, to the Board of Water Commissioners for the City of Detroit, serving on that board until 1925 a period which included one term of two years as president. He was also president of the Reserve Officers’ Association of the United States for the year 1921-1922. Aside from the practice of law, Sward was very active in civic affairs; he was, furthermore, a prominent member of the Intercollegiate Club which he helped to organize, of the University Club, and of the American Legion, as well as of the Officers’ Reserve Corps.</p>
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His family and classmates are not alone in feeling a deep sense of loss in his passing; his friends and associates in Detroit joined his comrades of the army in mourning the loss of a dear friend. He is survived by his widow, the former Miss Bertha F. Oldfield, whom he married, soon after graduation from the Military Academy, at Garnerville, New York; and by their only child, Francis L. Sward, Jr., of Detroit, Michigan.</p>
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<em>—A Classmate</em><br />
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