The Honorable William Peacock, former Assistant Secretary – U.S. Army and USMC Colonel poses with Marine Corps GEN Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
William Peacock
Former Assistant Secretary of the US Army and USMC Colonel
A graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, cum laude, and the Harvard Law School, Bill has led a distinguished career. After duty in Vietnam as a Marine Captain, Bill continued in leadership positions, serving as Commanding Officer of several units in the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit, retiring as a full Colonel. In a civilian capacity, he served in the White House as well as in the U.S. Department of Energy as a presidential appointee until he was appointed by President Carter and confirmed by the United States Senate as the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower & Reserve Affairs – a four-star civilian equivalent – where he spearheaded the Army’s “Be All You Can Be” recruiting theme, a campaign that lasted over 20 years. He was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Army’s highest.
Bill was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to serve 6 years on the California Regional Water Quality Control Board as the Public Member. In the private sector, he has been a corporate officer in several Fortune 500 companies, and since the early 1990’s has been engaged in helping to finance and guide start-up companies in Silicon Valley.
Colonel Peacock gives freely of his time and energy on numerous civic and charitable boards. After three years of service on the Board of the Marines’ Memorial Association in San Francisco, he was elected a member of the Board of the Marine’s Memorial Theatre. Bill recently stood down after having served on the Marines’ Memorial Foundation. He recently retired after five years as the elected Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Wine Country Marines, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, where he enhanced by an order of magnitude the fundraising success on behalf of badly wounded Marines, Soldiers and Navy Corpsmen from $9,000 to over $100,000 for each of 5 years under his leadership.
Bill serves on the all-volunteer Focus Board of the huge Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Palo Alto. As a Committee Member, he assisted the Defenders Lodge, a $17 million, 104 bed near-luxury hotel, free to out-of-town veterans at the Palo Alto VA. Bill is a member on another 501(c)(3) Board of the Mounted Patrol Foundation of San Mateo County, and he is a Board member of the Los Gatos Veterans Memorial, a $2,000,000 project that in January 2019 broke ground. As head of the Northern California effort of Annual Giving for his class at Princeton, he consistently attains over 80% participation for the last 20 years. Bill has also served years earlier on the San Jose-Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, on the boards of the San Jose Symphony and the Portola Valley Schools Foundation.
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A Memorial creates an actual place where veterans, all who serve their country and families of all races, creeds, social status and opinion can find a place that creates a healing environment to reflect and value one of our greatest gifts--to live in a free society.
"Going clear back to the Civil War, all of our Veterans have raised their right hand and swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And along with that we wrote a check to the U.S. Government and the American People for an amount up to and including our lives. Unfortunately, far too many have given their all in that regard."
"It is important to have a war memorial because it must not be forgotten that many people gave their lives so that we Americans might have what we have today."