Sidney Shachnow

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Sidney Shachnow" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Sidney Shachnow
Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, USA
Born	(1934-11-23)November 23, 1934 Kaunas, Lithuania
Died	September 27, 2018(2018-09-27) (aged 83) Southern Pines, North Carolina, U.S.
Buried	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service / branch	United States Army
Years of service	1955–1994
Rank	Major General
Commands	John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School U.S. Army Berlin
Battles / wars	Vietnam War
Awards	Combat Infantryman Badge Silver Star (2) Bronze Star Medal (3) Purple Heart (2)

Sidney Shachnow ((1934-11-23)November 23, 1934 – (2018-09-27)September 27, 2018) was a Jewish American Holocaust survivor who attained the rank of major general in United States Army.^[1] He retired in 1994, after almost 40 years of active service.

Sid Shachnow was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, on November 23, 1934. At the age of seven, Shachnow was imprisoned in the Kovno Ghetto during World War II because his family was Jewish. For three years, he endured brutalities and lost almost every single one of his extended family members. To increase his prospects of survival, young Shachnow performed heavy manual labor under harsh conditions. He narrowly escaped death only days before Kovno's gruesome "Children's Action", of March 27–28, 1944, when Nazi troops rounded up all children in the camp and marched them to The Ninth Fort for execution or to Auschwitz to be gassed. After escaping the ghetto, Shachnow lived in hiding for months, almost dying from starvation and malnutrition. Shachnow fled west after the Soviets invaded Kaunas from the Nazis and began to implement Communism. His 2,000-mile, six-month journey across Europe, mostly on foot, took him across Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, and finally to American-occupied Nuremberg, Germany, where he hoped to obtain a visa to the United States. To make a living in war-torn Nuremberg, Shachnow resorted to pirating black market contraband such as nylon stockings and chocolate. It was during this time that he learned to speak German.

In 1950, Shachnow obtained a visa and immigrated to Salem, Massachusetts, where he attended school for the first time in his life. He took English lessons and worked in the evenings after school to help support the family financially. Just before graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 10, 1955. As a Sergeant First Class, he entered Officer Candidate School and received his commission in the U.S. Army Infantry on April 12, 1960.^[2]

In 1962 he volunteered for the United States Army Special Forces, also known as the "Green Berets", where he served for the next thirty-two years. After joining Special Forces, Shachnow was promoted to captain and assigned as commander of Detachment A-121, his group was deployed to Vietnam's An Long Camp near the Cambodian border along the Mekong River.

Shachnow earned his first Silver Star for combat action there as well as a Purple Heart. He was shot in the leg and the arm simultaneously. After being shot, he applied a tourniquet to his leg and continued to fight, lead and care for his men in battle. He recovered from his wounds and returned home only to be diagnosed with the tuberculosis, typhoid fever and several other illnesses from which he eventually recovered.

After recovering, he earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska, and the Army promoted him to major. He couldn't attend the graduation ceremonies; he received deployment orders for his second tour to Vietnam. The army assigned Shachnow to the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, where he earned his second Silver Star for gallantry in action after escaping death several times.

In the 1970s he served as commander of Det-A, Berlin Brigade, a clandestine unit of Cold War Special Forces soldiers on high alert 24-hours a day. This covert unit was made up of selectively trained and language qualified members of Special Forces, as well as many Eastern European immigrants who brought much-needed culture, geographical and language skills to the assignment. Their missions were classified; they dressed in civilian clothing made in East and West Germany and carried appropriate non-American documentation and identification. Within Special Forces, they were referred to as "Stay Behind" Teams, the detachments that would stay behind if the Soviet Union ever attacked the West. Their mission was the traditional SF mission, that of Unconventional Warfare (UW), to aid those who were subjugated by an occupying force, and assist those who would rebel against the Soviets (...to teach indigenous people basic warfare tactics and weapons use, and lead them in operations against the enemy, conducting guerrilla warfare). Many of its members later went on to help form Delta Force (Det A did not itself become Delta Force). Shachnow's status grew as Special Forces grew, rising to the rank of Major General, receiving both a masters and an honorary doctoral degree along the way. He traveled the world, from Vietnam to the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Korea and back to Germany for the fall of the Berlin Wall.^{[citation needed]}

Shachnow attended the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston. While in the Army, he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska, a Master of Science in public administration from Shippensburg State College in Pennsylvania. He also graduated from the Executive Management Program at Harvard University.

Shachnow retired from the Army in 1994, at the age of 60, after 40 years of active-duty service.

Sidney Shachnow has been an honorary member of Rotary Club Berlin-Luftbruecke (Berlin-Airlift) since March 13, 1990.

Shachnow was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Special Forces Regiment in 2007.^[3] He was posthumously awarded the Bull Simons Award in 2019.^[4]

In 2004, Shachnow authored Hope and Honor, an autobiographical account of his childhood experience in the Nazi Kovno concentration camp of Lithuania, his immigration and assimilation to the United States and his 40-year career in the U.S. Army, Special Forces.

On September 6, 2016 he endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump,^[5] though he was publicly critical of some of Trump's foreign policy proposals.^[6]

Shachnow, who lived in Southern Pines, North Carolina, died on September 28, 2018. He was married to Arlene for 63 years and they had four daughters.^[3] Shachnow was interred at Arlington National Cemetery on February 12, 2019.^[7]

Maj. Gen. Shachnow's past assignments have been as commander or staff officer with Infantry, Mechanized Infantry, Airmobile, Airborne and Special Forces units. Gen. Shachnow's most recent assignments include:

• Commanding General, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, Airborne, Fort Bragg (1992^[8]–1994)
• Commanding General, United States Army Special Forces Command, Airborne, Fort Bragg
• Commanding General, U.S. Army Berlin
• Director, Washington Office, United States Special Operations Command, Airborne
• Deputy Commanding General, 1st Special Operations Command, Airborne, Fort Bragg
• Chief of Staff, 1st Special Operations Command, Airborne, Fort Bragg

	Combat Infantryman Badge
	Special Forces Tab
	Ranger Tab
	Master Parachutist Badge
	Expert Marksmanship Badge with Rifle and Pistol bars
	Vietnam Parachutist Badge
	Silver German Parachutist Badge
	John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School Combat Service Identification Badge
	1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) Distinctive Unit Insignia
	? Overseas Service Bars

	Army Distinguished Service Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster
	Silver Star with oak leaf cluster
	Defense Superior Service Medal
	Legion of Merit
	Bronze Star Medal with Valor device and two oak leaf clusters
	Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster
	Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters
	Air Medal with bronze award numeral 13
	Army Commendation Medal with Valor device and two oak leaf clusters
	Army Presidential Unit Citation with oak leaf cluster
	Valorous Unit Award with two oak leaf clusters
	Meritorious Unit Commendation
	Army Good Conduct Medal
	Army of Occupation Medal
	National Defense Service Medal with two bronze service stars
	Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
	Vietnam Service Medal with four service stars
	Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon
	Army Service Ribbon
	Army Overseas Service Ribbon with award numeral 3
	Vietnam Gallantry Cross with three bronze stars
	Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation, 2 awards
	Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation, 2 awards (Back then, two or more of these awards were worn as fourragère.)
	Vietnam Civil Actions Medal Unit Citation, 2 awards
	Vietnam Campaign Medal

• Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, USA (ret.) Biography at Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs website.