1921 – Hanford MacNider of Mason City, Iowa, a highly decorated combat officer of the American Expeditionary Forces and veteran of the Pancho Villa expedition, is elected national commander of The American Legion at it's third National Convention held in Kansas City, Missouri. He lead a cross-country victory tour for Supreme Allied Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France. MacNider would go on to serve as assistant secretary of war under President Calvin Coolidge, as U.S. Ambassador to Canada in 1930, and eventually command some of the heaviest fighting in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
He achieved the rank of lieutenant general before his death in 1968.
