Vietnam Veteran, Heisman Trophy Winner Creates Illustrious 25-Year Career

Pete Dawkins has lived a full life as an athlete, combat veteran and business executive, but at age 11 in 1949, things looked grim for him when he contracted polio.

However, Dawkins was a fighter. He successfully underwent vigorous physical therapy and became a polio survivor. He continued this exercise throughout his life.

The Royal Oak, Michigan, native later earned a scholarship to Cranbrook School, a college preparatory school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he excelled both as a star quarterback and captain of the baseball team.

Although accepted to Yale University, he chose instead to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, playing halfback with the football team from 1956 to 1958. During his senior year, Army had an undefeated season, and Dawkins carried the ball for 428 yards, returned 10 punts for 162 yards and scored 12 touchdowns.

In 1958, he won the Heisman Trophy, awarded to the top college football player, as well as the Maxwell Award, judged by sports journalists and college head coaches and presented to the best all-around player.

After graduating in 1959, Dawkins studied at England's Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, earning a bachelor's and a master's degree.

Following his studies in philosophy, politics and economics, he attended the Army's Infantry School and Ranger School, both at Fort Benning, Georgia.

He was then assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he commanded a rifle company.

At the start of the Vietnam War, Dawkins studied Vietnamese and then deployed to South Vietnam in 1966, assigned as a senior advisor to the Vietnamese 1st Airborne Battalion. Later, he was part of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary and Rural Development Support pacification program, which aimed to win the support of South Vietnamese villagers by providing security and economic development.

For his wartime service, he was awarded two Bronze Star Medals with "V" device for valor in combat.

Later, Dawkins returned to West Point as an instructor and also earned a doctorate at Princeton University in New Jersey. He was on the task force that transitioned the Army from the draft to the all-volunteer force in 1973 and retired as a brigadier general in 1983.

After retiring, Dawkins led a successful business career in executive positions with several companies and is currently a senior advisor for a financial services company.

He lives with his wife, Mary Ourisman, in Florida and New York. His first wife, Judi, died in 2017.