CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn received an Alumni Merit Award on Oct. 20 from the university where he once played defensive cornerback on the football team.
The director of the Army National Guard, who is the only Missouri National Guard member to ever attain the federally recognized rank of lieutenant general, received the alumni award from Southeast Missouri State University during homecoming weekend.
Alumni Merit Awards have been given by the university since 1958 to honor alumni who have brought distinction to themselves and to the university.
Vaughn was a physical education major in the Class of 1968.
The award was presented at the Copper Dome Society-Merit Award Dinner. Other recipients included an academic, a business leader and a woman who teaches homeless students.
Vaughn’s four-decade Army career has taken him from defending his alma mater’s honor on the gridiron to defending America at the highest levels of the National Guard and the Department of Defense.
Also a graduate of Shippensburg University and of the Army War College, Vaughn guides the formulation, development and implementation of all programs and policies affecting the 350,000 Citizen-Soldiers of the Army National Guard.
He was commissioned through the Missouri National Guard Officer Candidate School in 1974 and has served in a wide variety of command and staff positions as a traditional Guard Soldier and while on active duty.
Prior to his current assignment, the general’s extensive experience included serving on task forces in Central and South America and in general officer positions to include assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for National Guard matters.
A native of Dexter, Mo., Vaughn resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Carol.