NO. 17417 • 13 Dec 1928 - 17 Mar 2000
Died 17 Mar 2000 in Washington, DC.
Cremated, inurned in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA
ON 17 MAR 2000, the Class of '50 lost one of its younger and brighter members to pneumonia at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
George Rae Fullerton's life began in Boston, MA, in 1928, when he was born to Marjorie and Albert Fullerton. His childhood years were spent in the Boston area, where he graduated from Roxbury Latin School and entered Harvard in 1945 at the very young age of 16.
A year later, knowing nothing about the Army, George arrived at Central Area to join the Long Gray Line. At the Academy, he excelled in academics and in track & field. One of his major interests, and an indicator of his future vocation, was his work with the Radio Club. Upon graduation in 1950, he became a Signal Corps officer.
The year 1950 also saw him marrying Constance Hartwell on 16 June, whom he had known since his childhood in Boston. George and Constance had three sons ‑ Lawrence, Donald, and James; three daughters - Leslie, Laura, and Linda; and, eventually, 12 grandchildren.
George's early service was with the 97th Signal Battalion in Germany, where the expanding NATO commitment kept Signal officers very busy. In the late 1950s, he was one of the first of his class assigned to the Pentagon, in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. Assignments as Signal Officer for the 38th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in Korea and to the Computer System Command at Ft. Belvoir, VA, ultimately led to his role as Commanding Officer of the Computer Systems Support and Evaluation Command in Washington, DC. In that position, he laid much groundwork for the Army’s computer usage in the years to come. It was from that position that he retired from the Army in 1971.
Throughout his military career, George always was learning. In addition to the usual Army schools, he earned two master's of science from Stanford University, one in electrical engineering and the other in industrial engineering. While an assistant professor at the Academy, he did graduate studies in theoretical physics at New York University ‑ while at the same time writing and teaching a new course on theoretical physics and introducing computers to USMA as a member of the Dean's Special Committee on Computers in Education.
After retiring from the Army, George and Connie settled in northern Virginia, where he joined Computer Science Corporation as Project Director for the INFONET Division for the next ten years. In 1981, he became Director of Contracts for the International Division of CSC, working in Saudi Arabia during much of the time until 1984, when he joined IBIS Corporation as Director of Contracts until 1991.
For several years after leaving IBIS, George was a full or part‑time consultant to several companies in a number of technical areas. He was a highly respected and appreciated commander, leader, and coworker throughout his careers, both military and civilian. He was once described as one of the truly outstanding officers in the Army skilled in the field of automatic data processing. George is remembered by those who worked for him for his sincerity, understanding, pleasant attitude, and thoughtfulness.
He also is remembered for his love of competitive bridge; his enjoyment of camping trips with his family, friends, and dogs; and his hospitality at the Fullerton's Virginia Beach summer home.
Ethical values nurtured in George's early New England childhood and at Roxbury Latin School were strengthened during his West Point years. He instilled in all his children a willingness to work hard, a love of education and learning, and a desire to succeed. Three of his children are respected attorneys, the others include a successful engineer and two outstanding university professors. George was fiercely proud of them all.
Amid full military honors and with bagpipes playing, George was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on 28 Mar 2000.