Warren J. Higgins – Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army

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Warren J. Higgins was born at and grew up in a family of nine in Brockton, Massachusetts, and worked in the Douglas shoe factory there in the 1930’s.

During the early 1940’s he worked in a munitions plant in Brockton, Massachusetts, while attending Bentley College at night. He enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1942.

He did his basic training in Anniston, Alabama and in Jacksonville, Florida, before he was shipped out to Africa.  He was stationed as an enlisted man in both Tunisia and Cairo during World War II.

Later during the war he was assigned as a Sergeant to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He did alot of traveling while assigned to the OSS, and the local paper in Brockton, Massachusetts, wrote an article on it, which unfortunately was lost shortly after Dad’s death.

While in Africa, he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School, and somehow ended up in San Francisco where he was stationed at the end of WWII.

Shortly after the end of WWII, he was sent to Germany where he met my mother.   They were married in Heidelberg Germany in 1952.  In 1953 they came back to the United States and were living in Brooklyn, New York, for about a year. I think he was a Captain at that time.

My father was then sent to Armed Forces Staff School  in Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas. In 1955, my father was assigned to G4 (Transportation Corps) in
the Pentagon.  At this time, he was promoted to Major.

Later (in 1958) he was sent to Armed Forces Staff Training in Norfolk, Virginia.

He completed his BS at University of Maryland in 1959.  In 1959-1960 he was made Commander of Fort Story, Virginia.  Later in 1960 he was reassigned to the Pentagon and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

He served with the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1960-1964.  He suffered a major heart attack in 1962, about 4 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

He was then assigned to G4 at Fort Shafter, Hawaii in May or June 1964, and
stayed there until October 1965, at which time he retired from the U.S. Army. While stationed in Hawaii, he received the Legion of Merit twice from President Johnson which was the result of some planning efforts associated with the initial landing at Camranh Bay, Vietnam.

He returned to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1965 where he was hired by a former Army
boss (General Rush B. Lincoln) to manage a Division of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). He later rose to become the Operations Manager of the MBTA.

In 1979 he was hired by Mr. John Dire to assist with the construction of a new Metrorail in Dade County Florida. My father later became the General Manager of Metrorail and was responsible for the construction and operation of the first Rapid Transit Rail Line in Dade County (Miami) which opened to the public in May 1984.

He retired from Metrorail immediately following the opening of the first line and returned to his townhouse on Chestnut Street in Boston with my mother in May 1984, where they both lived in retirement until December 1994, when my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer.

After a botched operation on January 19, 1995, my father died shortly thereafter at Newton Wellesley Hospital on February 11, 1995. He was survived by his wife, Joan, and three children: Michael, Theresa, and me.

He was laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

We are very proud of the man Warren was and of his lifelong commitment to ‘Duty, Honor, Country’.

Thank you for honoring my father.

Bill Higgins

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