Remembering a Veteran: Lt. Everett McKinley Dirksen, 19th Balloon Company, 328th Field Artlillery, AEF

 

Lt. Everett Dirksen Wearing the Aerial Observer Wing

Future U.S. Senator from Illinois and Senate Minority leader Everett Dirksen (1896–1969) was born in Pekin, Illinois, where he attended public schools.  He would later receive his law degree from the University of Minnesota.  During the war he had the extremely hazardous job of observing artillery fire an observation balloon. He did observer duty in both the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives and later served as an intelligence officer during the occupation of Germany.

When he returned home, he reflected on how he wanted to spend the remainder of his life:

I was not sure that I wanted to return to school and complete my law course, but I did know that I wanted to do something to end the madness of conflict and the insane business of arbitrating the differences of men and nations with poison gas and high explosive shells.

President Eisenhower with Senator Dirksen in the Oval Office

By 1933, he was ready to run for office.  Here's a summary of his next 36 years of public service:

Everett Dirksen, represented central Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1933–1949. He later won four elections to the U.S. Senate, beginning in 1950. He rose through the leadership ranks of the Republican party in the Senate as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (1951–1954), Republican whip (1957–1959), and Senate Minority Leader (1959–1969). Dirksen played key roles in passing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Open Housing Act of 1968.

Sources: The Doughboy Center, Peoria History Center, Dirksencenter.org