Brigadier General Robert Worth Berry was born in Ryderwood March 2, 1926. After his high school graduation, Bob enlisted in the Army in 1944 during World War II and served at Camp Roberts, Calif.

He then attended Washington State University, graduating summa cum laude in 1950 with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Bob was recognized in March 2011 by his alma mater with the first ever Alumni Achievement Award. While at Washington State, Bob joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps and received his commission as a second lieutenant of infantry in the Army Reserves in May 1950.

He then moved east to attend Harvard Law School in 1950. While in law school he was called back to active duty to serve in the Korean War as the public information officer for the 40th "Balls of Fire" Division. After returning to Harvard Law School in 1953, Bob graduated in 1955 with a juris doctorate and accepted a position in the Department of Defense General Counsel’s office where he was instrumental in drafting the Defense Reorganization Act of 1958.

Bob continued to serve in the Army Reserves, with duty in the Pentagon and then as an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. In 1959 Bob joined Philco Corporation in Philadelphia as senior defense counsel. In 1960 he accepted a position with Litton Industries, at the time a major defense contractor, as senior counsel at its headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif.

He then moved in 1964 to Washington D.C. to establish Litton’s washington office and serve as its director of Washington operations.

Appointed by President Nixon as general counsel of the Army from 1971 to 1974, Bob served as the senior civilian lawyer, offering advice and counsel to two secretaries of the Army, Bob Froehlke and Bo Callaway, as well as Army chiefs of staff generals Westmoreland, Palmer, Abrams, and Weyland.

Those were trying times as the Army dealt with issues from My Lai in Vietnam, Wounded Knee in the Dakotas, the rebuilding of a demoralized Army, and the transition to a volunteer force after Vietnam as the draft was eliminated.

Robert Berry died Dec. 6, 2011, in Denver Colorado.