World War 2 soldiers who went on to be famous

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Eddie Albert

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He was already in movies before the war

Are you asking for stars who served, or people who served and later became stars?

Jimmy Stewart
Glen Miller

Eisenhower.

Lee Marvin - USMC
Wounded during the Battle of Saipan

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On 9 April 1917 he was shot in the left knee by a sniper at the Second Battle of Arras in France. After a succession of operations, doctors were forced to amputate his leg. Marshall remained hospitalised for 13 months. He later recalled in private that after his injury, he had initially over-dramatised his loss and was wrapped up in self-pity and bitterness. Before long, however, he decided he wanted to return to the theatre and learned how to walk well with a prosthetic leg in order to do so.

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Using his own money for travel, Marshall visited many military hospitals during the war. In particular, he focused on encouraging soldiers with amputations to keep a positive attitude and not to think of themselves as handicapped or limited. Despite his usual reluctance to discuss his own injury, he talked freely about his personal experiences in order to give these amputees tips on how to use and adjust to their new artificial limbs.

Although mostly kept private, a 1945 article in Motion Picture Magazine reported, against Marshall's wishes, on his work at military hospitals. The author Patty De Roulf insisted that his story needed to be told to help injured veterans and their families and to show that "Marshall is doing one of the finest war jobs any human being can do." She interviewed one young officer, who recalled:

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Herbert Marshall gave me back my life. When I found out I had a metal claw instead of a hand, I was completely broken...Then one day, while I was in the hospital, we were told Herbert Marshall, the film star, was coming to talk to us. I was disgusted with the idea. A collar ad, I thought, coming to give us a Pollyanna speech!

It turned out to be anything but that. Mr. Marshall talked real sense into us. He followed it up with demonstrations, actually showing us what he could do. Before he left, we were convinced that if he had been able to lead a normal life, we could do the same.

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The article also quoted a veteran with a double amputation (left leg and right foot), who praised Marshall for showing him how to dance with a prosthetic leg. He considered the actor's advice and example to be his Ten Commandments. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Head of the Allied Forces in Europe, noted in private that, of all the film stars he met in Europe during the war, he was most impressed with Marshall and Madeleine Carroll (who worked as a nurse at field hospitals).

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can you even BEGIN to imagine what these Great Americans would think of the current, Woke generation?

these heroes were storming the beaches of Normandy... but in today's America half of the "men" can't even change a flat tire

America desperately needs to embrace masculinity again and stop embracing Woke Supremacy.

I know he was already maybe the best actor in Hollywood but Jimmy Stewart deserves to be recognized here just for what he did

Stewart became the first major American movie star to enlist in the United States Army to fight in World War II.[110] His family had deep military roots: both of his grandfathers had fought in the Civil War,[111] and his father had served during both the Spanish–American War and World War I.[112] After first being rejected for low weight in November, 1940, he enlisted in February, 1941.[113][N 1] As an experienced amateur pilot, he reported for induction as a private in the Air Corps on March 22, 1941.[115] Soon to be 33 years old, he was over the age limit for Aviation Cadet training—the normal path of commissioning for pilots, navigators and bombardiers—and therefore applied for an Air Corps commission as both a college graduate and a licensed commercial pilot.[116] Stewart received his commission as a second lieutenant on January 1, 1942.[117]

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Lieutenant James Stewart in Winning Your Wings (1942)
After enlisting, Stewart made no new commercial films, although he remained under contract to MGM. His public appearances were limited to engagements for the Army Air Forces.[116] The Air Corps scheduled him on network radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and on the radio program We Hold These Truths, a celebration of the United States Bill of Rights, which was broadcast a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor.[118] Stewart also appeared in a First Motion Picture Unit short film, Winning Your Wings, to help recruit airmen. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1942, it appeared in movie theaters nationwide beginning in late May, 1942 and resulted in 150,000 new recruits.[119]

Stewart was concerned that his celebrity status would relegate him to duties behind the lines.[118] After spending over a year training pilots at Kirtland Army Airfield in Albuquerque, New Mexico,[120] he appealed to his commander and was sent to England as part of the 445th Bombardment Group to pilot a B-24 Liberator, in November 1943, and was based initially at RAF Tibenham before moving to RAF Old Buckenham.[121]

A military officer pinning an award to Stewart's decorated military jacket, among other uniformed soldiers
Colonel Stewart receiving the Croix de Guerre with Palm in 1944
Stewart was promoted to Major following a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 7, 1944.[122][N 2] He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions as deputy commander of the 2d Bombardment Wing,[124] and the French Croix de Guerre with palm and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.[125] Stewart was promoted to full colonel on March 29, 1945,[126] becoming one of the few Americans to ever rise from private to colonel in only four years.[127] At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the court martial of a pilot and navigator who accidentally bombed Zurich, Switzerland.[128]

Stewart returned to the United States in early fall 1945.[129] He continued to play a role in reserve of the Army Air Forces after the war,[130] and was also one of the 12 founders of the Air Force Association in October, 1945.[131] Stewart would eventually transfer to the reserves of the United States Air Force after the Army Air Forces split from the Army, in 1947. During active-duty periods he served with the Strategic Air Command and completed transition training as a pilot on the B-47 and B-52.[132]

Stewart was first nominated for promotion to brigadier general in February, 1957; however, his promotion was initially opposed by Senator Margaret Chase Smith.[132] At the time of the nomination, the Washington Daily News noted: "He trains actively with the Reserve every year. He's had 18 hours as first pilot of a B-52."[133] On July 23, 1959, Stewart was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in American military history.[134] During the Vietnam War, he flew as a non-duty observer in a B-52 on an Arc Light bombing mission in February, 1966.[135] He served for 27 years, officially retiring from the Air Force on May 31, 1968, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 60.[136] Upon his retirement, he was awarded the United States Air Force Distinguished Service Medal.[137] Stewart rarely spoke about his wartime service,[138] but did appear in an episode of the British television documentary series The World at War (1974), commenting on the disastrous 1943 mission against Schweinfurt, Germany.[139] In 1985, Stewart was promoted to rank of major general on the Air Force retired list

Ted knight dropped out of high school to serve. Earned 5 battle stars in the European theater

Don Knotts

Knotts was born in West Virginia, the youngest of 4 children. In the 1940s, before earning a college degree, he served in the United States Army and serving in World War II. While he was serving, he chose to become a ventriloquist and comedian as part of a G.I. variety show called "Stars and Gripes".

After being discharged, Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. His breakthrough role on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, playing the role extremely nervous man. In 1958, Knotts made his film debut in the adapted version of No Time for Sergeants.

1939 Heisman winner Nile Kinnick (Iowa)

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On June 2, 1943, Ensign Kinnick was on a routine training flight from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, which was off the coast of Venezuela in the Gulf of Paria. Kinnick had been flying for over an hour when his Grumman F4F Wildcat developed an oil leak so serious that he could neither reach land nor the Lexington, whose flight deck was in any case crowded with planes preparing for launch. Kinnick followed standard military procedure and executed an emergency landing in the water, but died in the process. Rescue boats arrived on the scene a mere eight minutes later, but they found only an oil slick. His body was never recovered.

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