General of the Army George Catlett Marshall was born on December 31, 1880, at Uniontown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901 as First Captain of the Corps of Cadets, he spent fifty years in the active service of his country. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1939 to 1945, Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, President of the American Red Cross from 1949 to 1950, Secretary of Defense from 1950 to 1951, and a member of the VMI Board of Visitors from 1946 to 1954, and he received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953. He died on October 16, 1959, at Washington, D.C., and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.