Today is the birthday of John Enoch Powell [1] (born 1912, died 8 February 1998). He was one of the very few military men to rise from enlisted Private to Brigadier General. Similarly, in the U.S. military, Nathan Bedford Forrest enlisted as a Private and advanced to the rank of Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War. (His postwar career was, ahem, less distinguished.) Chesty Puller [2] did the same in the U.S. Marine Corps. Likewise, U.S. Army General Tommy Franks began his Army career as a Private in 1965 and went on to eventually wear four stars, as did Admiral Jeremy Michael Borda, advancing from USN E-1 to USN O-10 (from Seaman to Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations). There have been a few such examples but not very many. (Special thanks to SurvivalBlog reader George S. for mentioning this birth date and the similarity in the service of Forrest, Franks, and Borda.)