Thursday, June 25, 2009

Belvoir, Army honor late Materiel and Readiness commander Guthrie

Fort Belvoir and all stateside Army installations will fly the U.S. flag at half-staff June 30 to honor the former commander of the Army Materiel and Readiness Command who died May 25 in Washington. He was 87.

Retired Gen. John R. Guthrie served as the four-star commander of AMRC from 1977 to 1981. The organization was renamed the Army Materiel Command in 1984.

Guthrie was commissioned through the Princeton University Army ROTC program in 1942 and served as an assistant military attaché in London during World War II. A field artillery officer, Guthrie subsequently served in the Korean War, and during the mid-1950s served as the staff project officer for the launching of the nation’s first Earth satellite.

Guthrie returned in the mid-1960s to Korea, where he was assistant commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, and in the mid-1970s became commander of X Corps and U.S. Army Japan.
He was married to Rebecca Jeffers Guthrie, who died in 2005.

Funeral services are scheduled for 9 a.m. on Tuesday at Belvoir’s Memorial Chapel