Hugh Meglone Milton: A Life Beyond Duty

Hugh M. Milton began his remarkable career in 1924 as professor of engineering at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic arts. By 1938 he had assumed the presidency of the college and steered it through an accreditation scandal that might have caused the institution’s disintegration. In 1940 he took temporary leave of his academic career when the U. S. Army recalled him to service. Col. Milton figured prominently, strategically and heroically in the Pacific Theatre, rising to the rank of Brigadier General. After the war Milton returned briefly to New Mexico and the academic world but in 1950 a series of brilliant military promotions culminated in his appointment as Assistant and, later, Undersecretary of the Army. In 1961 he retired to his adopted state of New Mexico where he resisted recruitment to run for governor but remained active as a prolific and much coveted speaker, writer, and historian. His qualities of heroism, wisdom, vision, uncompromised integrity, public service, and eclectic interests combine to reveal a New Mexican of incomparable stature.