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LTC (Ret) William P Roe
Lieutenant Colonel William P. Roe was a native of Dallas, Texas. He entered Arlington State College in 1958 and was a member of the Corps of Cadets and the rifle team. He served as Corps Commander his senior year. He graduated in January 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Civil Engineering and was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
After completing the Engineer Officer Basic Course, LTC Roe was assigned to Germany where he served as a Platoon Leader, Headquarters Company Commander, Construction Engineer, and Personnel Officer. On return from Europe he served as Branch Chief of the Maintenance Management Branch at Fort Belvoir, VA. He took a short break in his military service working as a civil engineer in the Engineering Plans and Services Branch of the Facilities Engineer at Cameron Station, Alexandria, VA.
Returning to active duty, he served in the 91st Engineer Battalion as a Company Commander and Assistant S-3 at Fort Belvoir. He attended the Engineer Officer Advanced Course before an assignment in Vietnam where he was the Installation Engineer at four separate military installations (Nhin Hoa, Phan Thiet, An Khe, and Qui Nhon).
In early 1971 he served as the III Corps, Deputy Corps Engineer and Operations/Plans Officer at Fort Hood, TX. From June 1973 to June 1976 he served as commander of an engineer detachment (utilities) at the U.S. Military Academy. Bill took on a secondary specialty in 1978 when he attended the Foreign Area Officer’s course. He then took an assignment to Korea with the Combat Support Coordination Team #1, where he used his engineering skills and his training as a foreign area officer. He completed the Basic Korean Language Course at the Defense Language Institute and returned to Korea for an accompanied tour with the U.S. Tunnel Neutralization Team.
After Korea Bill served as Assistant Professor of Military Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Master of Science degree in Political Science. He then moved to Hawaii and served as the Plans and Programs Officer in the Security Assistance Programs Division of J4, USCINCPAC. He also served as a member of the USCINCPAC J4 Performance Evaluation Group.
LTC Roe retired from the Army in 1986 and spent the next four years as the Foreign Military Sales Officer at the American Institute where he was the liaison official between the U.S. Army and the Taiwanese Army. He assisted the Taiwanese Army authorities in the development and maintenance of an effective logistical support program for defense articles acquired through Foreign Military Sales. In this position he also assisted the Taiwanese Army with the planning, preparation, and coordination necessary to conduct successful semi-annual reviews for the major foreign military sales programs, such as HAWK and CHAPARRAL Air Defense missile systems, the medium tank, and the radar and computer system for artillery batteries.
In September 1990 Bill joined Raytheon Corporation as the Program Manager, HAWK Air Defense Missile Engineering Service, serving as the primary interface between Raytheon Integrated International Air Defense and the Missile Systems Management Branch in the Security Assistance Management Directorate of Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. LTC Roe retired from Raytheon in 2005.
Throughout his military and civilian careers, Bill was well-known as a man of integrity and kindness. A former supervisor wrote, “I never met a person possessing greater dedication to doing a good job or having more integrity about how to interact with co-workers or customers.”
For over 40 years Bill and his wife Amy sponsored numerous children from around the world through the organization Child Fund International. Lieutenant Colonel Roe died on March 11, 2011, and is survived by Amy, a son and daughter, and two granddaughters.