John J Pershing

John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB (September 13, 1860 July 15, 1948) was an officer in the United States Army. He is the only person to be promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army—General of the Armies. (A retroactive Congressional edict passed in 1976[1] declared that George Washington has never been and will never be outranked[2]). Pershing led the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and was regarded as a mentor by the generation of American generals who led the United States Army in Europe during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton.