Ansel Stroud

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Ansel Martin "Buddy" Stroud, Jr. (Adjutant General of the Louisiana National Guard)
Born	April 5, 1927 Reared in Dixie, Caddo Parish Louisiana, USA
Died	July 1, 2016 Place of death missing
Spouse	(1) Barbara White Stroud (divorced) (2) Jane Smith Pierce Stroud
Religion	United Methodist

Ansel Martin Stroud, Jr., often called Buddy Stroud (April 5, 1927  – July 1, 2016), was a  United States Army major general from Shreveport, Louisiana, whose career extended from 1944 to 1997. He was particularly known as the adjutant general of the 14,000-member Louisiana National Guard during the administrations of Governors David C. Treen, Edwin Edwards, Buddy Roemer, and Mike Foster.

Background[edit]

Stroud was the younger of two children and the only son of A. M. Stroud, Sr. (1890-1968), who died in Cullen in Webster Parish, and the former Grace Killingsworth (1904-1988).^[1]

He was reared in Dixie, an unincorporated community in Caddo Parish and graduated from nearby Belcher High School in Belcher. In April 1944, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the Army. Two years later he was commissioned a second lieutenant after the completion of officer candidacy school. He attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas,  and Texas A&M University in College Station.^[2]

By his first wife, the former Barbara White, now deceased, he had four sons, Ansel Stroud, III, and wife Joan, Daniel Garber Stroud and wife Helen, William Lee Stroud and wife Lee Ann, and Michael Allyn Stroud and wife Lea. From his second marriage to the former Jane Smith Pearce (born June 1925), he acquired five step-children, Betty Pearce, Mary-Clyde Greene and husband, Wiley; Margaret Pearce Price, the widow of Richard Price; Louise Pearce; and Preston Pearce and wife, Karen, and seven grandchildren.^[2]

Career[edit]

Stroud received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of the State of New York and studied as well at the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He joined the Louisiana National Guard in June 1947. In 1962, he was named president of the National Guard Association of Louisiana. In 1989, he was appointed director of the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness. He was president too of the National Guard Association of the United States and president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States. Under Stroud, some 6,400 Louisiana National Guard personnel in 1991 were mobilized during Operation Desert Storm, in which IraqI forces were quickly expelled from Kuwait. Units under Stroud trained and participated in joint military exercises with other countries worldwide. Stroud worked to develop the Youth Challenge Program, which operating in thirty-seven states has sought to rehabilitate troubled young people and to give them the skills to render productive lives.^[2]

In 1972, Governor Edwin Edwards in the first of his four terms in office, named Stroud the assistant adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard. Edwards' first successor and two-time opponent, David Treen, elevated Stroud to adjutant general in 1980. In 1991, Stroud spoke out while in uniform against David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman and Republican gubernatorial candidate who lost that year to Democrat Edwin Edwards. Stroud said the endorsement of Edwards was his only venture into politics but he would again if needed speak out against Duke.^[3]

Stroud was also a farmer and businessman and the first director of the Red River Economic Development Corporation in Shreveport, through which he worked to obtain federal grants for agencies in northwestern Louisiana. He was affiliated with the Masonic lodge, the Shriners, and the Ellerbe Road United Methodist Church in Shreveport.

Stroud died from complications of a medical procedure.^[2] He is interred at Forest Park East Cemetery at 3700 St. Vincent Avenue in Shreveport. Stroud described himself "a God-fearing man that did his best, and have asked for God's mercy and forgiveness."^[4] Stroud won many military medals; his obituary focuses on his patriotism, which "knew no limits, and he was fully committed to the defense of the Constitution of the United States and to the defense of our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic."^[2] General Frank Grass, the 27th chief of the National Guard Bureau, attributed much of the success of the Louisiana Guard to Stroud's leadership: "He was a tremendous visionary. He just set us on the path for so many things."^[4]

The Ansel M. Stroud, Jr. Military History and Weapons Museum at the Jackson Barracks headquarters of the Louisiana National Guard in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans is named in honor of Stroud, who worked to establish the facility. He was also an inductee of the Louisiana National Guard Hall of Fame and was among the first named to the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame.^[2]

References[edit]