After serving as one of the top destroyer squadron commanders of World War II, Arleigh A. Burke (1901-1996) had an equally distinguished postwar career in which he played a major role in modernizing the Navy and guiding its response to the Cold War.
When Burke passed in 1996, he was hailed as a "sailor's sailor" who defined what it meant to be a naval officer: "relentless in combat, resourceful in command, and revered by his crews."