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Lt. Gen. Herbert R. Temple Jr. 1928-2024
The man who jump-started the Army National Guard’s transformation to an operational force has passed away.
Retired Lt. Gen. Herbert R. Temple Jr., the director of the Army Guard from 1982 to 1986 and the chief of the National Guard Bureau from 1986 to 1990, died Dec. 29 at his home in Palm Desert, California. He was 96.
As Army Guard director, Temple made changes that touched every member of the organization. He created new training programs and increased military education requirements. He also made bachelor’s degrees a perquisite for promotion to major. And for the first time, he sent Army Guard units to major exercises overseas and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California.
In addition, Temple was the driving force behind the construction of the Army Guard headquarters building in Arlington, Virginia, which brought together functions that had been undertaken at separate locations.
Some adjutants general chafed at the extent and pace of change. But Temple was undeterred. He believed the Army Guard would be needed early and often in any future conflict, and the force had to be ready. He also did not want another Soldier to endure what he had experienced as a young, enlisted troop in the Korean War.
Temple and the rest of the California Army Guard’s 40th Infantry Division unit deployed unprepared for combat. He never attended basic training troops let alone advanced individual training. Nonetheless, he was sent to the front, first as a replacement rifleman and then as a squad leader in the 5th Regimental Combat Team, 24th Infantry Division. He suffered from malaria and was finally pulled from the line for good due to frostbitten feet.
“I said that if I was ever in a position to prevent what happened to me and a lot of other Soldiers who went into Korea with little or no training, that I would do that,” he recalled in an oral history recorded in 1998 for the Army’s Military History Institute. “My time in combat became the motivation for many of my activities as director of the Army Guard.”
Temple honored his promise, altering what it means to be an Army Guard Soldier.
“When no one at DA [the Department of the Army] took it on to fix Army National Guard junior leader and soldier problems, General Temple took the initiative, found the resources and created solutions,” says retired Maj. Gen. Raymond F. Rees, a Vietnam veteran and the Army Guard director from 1992 to 1993.
Rees, who later served tours as acting NGB chief, NGB vice chief, the adjutant general of Oregon and deputy assistant secretary of the Army for training, readiness and mobilization, said Temple was “a friend, mentor and personal hero of mine.”
“General Temple is the father of the modern Army National Guard,” adds retired Maj. Gen. John D’Araujo, another Vietnam veteran who worked training matters for Temple at the Army Guard directorate and later served as Army Guard director from 1993 to 1995.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, who was NGB chief from 2003 to 2008, says Temple is the reason why the Army Guard was ready for its increased role during the Global War on Terrorism.
“Had those tough decisions not been made early,” Blum told NATIONAL GUARD in 2014, “the successes that followed with the commitment and the magnificent contributions the Guard has made in the Balkans, the Sinai, for the combatant commands around the world and particularly on the battlefields for more than the last decade would not have been possible.”
My time in combat became the motivation for many of my activities as director of the Army Guard.
—Retired Lt. Gen. Herbert R. Temple Jr., the director of the Army National Guard, 1982-1986; the chief of the National Guard Bureau, 1986-1990
TEMPLE WAS BORN AND RAISED in Los Angeles. Football was an early passion. He played in high school and was a lifelong fan of the University of Southern California Trojans, one of college football’s traditional powers. He even adopted the school’s battle cry “Fight On!” as his personal motto.
He enlisted in the California Army Guard’s 160th Infantry Regiment, 40th Infantry Division, in 1947. His unit was mobilized for Korea in 1950 when he was a supply sergeant.
In 1952, he returned from Korea and received a direct commission as a second lieutenant. Meanwhile, he entered the private sector, becoming vice president and a partner in a trucking company in Long Beach, California. Temple commanded units at the company, battalion and brigade level.
As he rose in rank, officials in Sacramento, the capital of California, took notice. He was military assistant to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan from 1968 to 1971 and later the director of the California Office of Emergency Services.
Temple arrived at NGB in 1975, serving as the Army Guard’s first chief of mobilization and readiness. After a stint as chief of policy and congressional liaison at the Guard Bureau and four years as Army Guard deputy director, he took over as director in 1982.
His plans quickly drew the ire of some states. Many adjutants general saw the Guard as primarily a state force and only a deep reserve for the war fight, D’Araujo recalls. They didn’t like the extra days Guard Soldiers were being asked to serve. A few TAGs even tried to get him relieved as Army Guard director. But Temple never blinked.
“I had 29 years of service with troops,” Temple told NATIONAL GUARD in 2014. “I believed wholeheartedly that no one in the entire world knew more about the Army Guard than I did and that what I was doing was absolutely correct and what should be done to give our Soldiers a better shot at surviving in the next war. And, most importantly, the nation succeeding in that conflict.”
He also had supporters in high places. Among them was Army Secretary John O. Marsh, who had served in the Virginia Army Guard for 22 years. There was also the commander in chief. D’Araujo remembers a photo prominently displayed in Temple’s office of the general and the president in the Oval Office. It was signed, “Herb, just like old times, Ron.”
Those around Temple at the time say he never flaunted the relationship, although Army officials were keenly aware of his history with Reagan. Not that he needed much help persuading service leaders. Those who worked for Temple say he was blessed with charisma. “That guy just filled the room when he walked in,” D’Araujo says. “And he was a hell of an articulate speaker.”
Ever the Soldier, Temple was no less at home visiting troops at training areas. “He didn’t like to get into the formal briefings out in the field,” D’Araujo adds. “He’d rather just get a quick and dirty and go mingle with the troops, which he loved to do. He used every opportunity he could to get out there to get his boots dirty.”
The impact of Temple’s changes was quick and far-reaching. D’Araujo recalls returning to his home state of Hawaii in 1973 to be assistant adjutant general-Army and finding a better-trained and professional force than one he left seven years earlier to come to the Pentagon. “I remember coming back and telling him. I said, ‘You know, general, that’s a different National Guard out there,’” he says. “I mean, I was overwhelmed. It was just an amazing change.”
Despite his ambitious agenda, Temple made time to identify and mentor the next generation of Guard leaders. One was then-Lt. Col. Gus L. Hargett Jr. of Tennessee, who got to know the then-Army Guard director over nine holes of golf one morning at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where Hargett was a Guard officer working at Fifth U.S. Army headquarters.
“I never would have gone to the Army War College or become the TAG of Tennessee if not for Herb Temple encouraging me,” says Hargett, who was NGAUS president from 2010 to 2017 after more than seven years as adjutant general of Tennessee.
I never would have gone to the Army War College or become the TAG of Tennessee if not for Herb Temple encouraging me.
—Retired Maj. Gen. Gus L. Hargett Jr., the adjutant general of Tennessee, 2003 to 2010; the NGAUS president 2010 to 2017
THAT STATE EFFORT to oust Temple petered out when he was appointed NGB chief. By then, however, there were some contentious governors.
Some state commanders in chief refused, or threatened to refuse, to let their Guard troops deploy to Honduras beginning in 1986. They considered the annual engineer exercises that began when Temple was Army Guard director a veiled threat by the Reagan administration against the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, charged that sending Guardsmen there was illegal.
Temple, the gentlemanly chief, played hardball. At one point, he threatened to withhold federal support from, and virtually shut down, the entire Ohio Guard unless Gov. Richard Celeste ended his opposition to sending an engineer brigade headquarters to Honduras. Faced with a loss of $256 million a year, the governor relented.
“I saw a threat that if we backed down on that issue, the governors would begin to intrude on a routine basis,” Temple explained in 2014. “I saw it as an intrusion in training the force.”
Rep. Sonny Montgomery from Mississippi tried to resolve the issue with an amendment to the fiscal 1987 National Defense Authorization Act that prohibited the governors from stopping Guardsmen from training overseas because of location, purpose, type or schedule. NGAUS supported the amendment.
Several governors led by Minnesota’s Rudy Perpich filed suit against the Defense Department in 1987, charging that the Montgomery Amendment violated the militia clause of the Constitution, which gives states the authority to train their militias.
The U.S. Supreme Court settled the matter once and for all, in Perpich v. Department of Defense, by unanimously ruling in June 1990 that the Montgomery Amendment was constitutional.
Temple retired that year as NGB chief after 42 years of service but stayed connected to the force. He would visit Washington, D.C., regularly to rekindle relationships and share his counsel. He was also a regular at the annual NGAUS conference.
As his health began to falter and travel became difficult, he stayed in touch via email and the phone.
“One of the first calls I received when I became chief was from Lt. Gen. Temple and it meant the world to me,” said Air Force Gen. Steve Nordhaus, the current NGB chief, Dec. 19 at a ceremony to dedicate a display in honor of Temple in the Army Guard headquarters building that now bears his name. “Lt. Gen. Temple was a general among generals and a leader among leaders.”
In his final years, he was a regular reader of the NGAUS daily news digest and a big fan of the National Guard Educational Foundation’s Minuteman Minute series of 60-second video history YouTube videos, often emailing NGEF staff to share his approval.
Temple was laid to rest Jan. 24 next to his wife, Pat, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California, with full military honors, including a fly-by by four California Air Guard F-15C Eagle fighters. Those in attendance included two former NGB chiefs — retired Gen. Frank J. Grass (2012-2016) and retired Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson (2020-2024). He was eulogized by Rees, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs, the Army Guard director, and Maj. Gen. Matthew P. Beevers, the adjutant general of California.
Rees told those gathered that his eulogy was at the personal request of Temple, generated during a visit to Palm Desert in November. “The only thing that he wanted emphasized was that he wanted to be remembered as a Citizen-Soldier,” Rees said. “That appellation meant everything to him.”
JOHN GOHEEN is the NGAUS director of communications. He can be reached at [email protected]. BOB HASKELL contributed to this story.
GENERAL TEMPLE'S 12 LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES
- Knowledge: Know your business.
- Vision: Think and plan beyond short-range objectives.
- Objective: Know your mission and purpose. Do not become decisively engaged at intermediate objectives.
- Offense: Be proactive. Make things happen.
- Take Charge: When in charge, take charge.
- Flatten and Empower: Organize horizontally and empower subordinates.
- Teamwork: Keep your team informed and motivated (you are the quarterback). Report. Keep the chain of command informed.
- Care for Subordinates: Respect them. Set high standards and expect compliance. Be as concerned with their careers as you are with your own. Acknowledge their service and exceptional performance.
- Integrity: Play by the rules.
- Consistent: Today’s decision is good tomorrow. However, do not take the ground and hold it.
- Courage of Your Convictions: Stand for what you believe.
- Nothing is Impossible: Take on the too-hard box.
