During the Korean War, he commands a covert, behind-the-lines operation with Captain Rudolph G. MacMillan, earning a Distinguished Service Cross for his combat valor.
Though Felter tries several times to return to the conventional army, he is kept on in his role as Counselor to the President due to his uncanny ability to correctly predict the actions of the nation's enemies and to spot trouble before it happens.
Mac MacMillan was a Regular Army Sergeant assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, who received a battlefield commission while participating in Operation Market Garden, although he was taken prisoner before he learned of it.
Mac dies, apparently of a stroke, in the final pages of The Generals during Operation Monte Cristo, a raid to rescue American prisoners of war held by the North Vietnamese.
Craig Lowell is an extremely wealthy Harvard drop-out (he was actually expelled) who was drafted and sent to the US occupation forces in Germany, where his duties include being the Constabulary golf pro.
When he is medevaced to Germany, he marries Ilse von Grieffenberg, whom he had known in both the literal and Biblical senses before his assignment to the Military Assistance Advisory Group Greece.
Upon his return to the US, Lowell remains in the army for a couple of years until his service obligation expires, most of the time at the Armor Board at Fort Knox working on the M3 90mm high velocity tank gun project.
His son Peter-Paul was born at Knox, and he makes a close friend in Philip Sheriden Parker IV, his roommate during the Basic Officer's Course.
Lowell went to Norwich University in Vermont and in 18 months took a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, in Foreign Languages (German and Russian), while continuing to work for Army Aviation on the q.t.
His most notable affairs included Georgia Page, a Hollywood starlet whom he took to the front lines and with whom he allegedly had sex in a tank; Jane Cassidy, his married secretary, while stationed at Fort Rucker; and Cynthia Thomas, a wealthy journalist to whom he became engaged.
His last affair, with Dorothy Sims, wife of an Air Force POW in Vietnam, was so far beyond acceptable military behavior that Lowell was immediately retired upon his return from Operation Monte Cristo despite its success.
Following their graduation from the Armor School, both are given dead-end assignments, but the intervention of a senator (at Lowell's cousin's suggestion) helps revive their careers.
After his rescue from the Russians by Task Force Parker, Bellmon was repatriated to the United States and reduced in grade to major as part of the army's draw-down following World War II.
The Waterfords owned a substantial amount of property on the California coast near Carmel before selling it off at high prices, and Barbara inherited that money.
The Bellmon character in part resembles General John K. Waters, who was the real life son-in-law of Patton and a POW in Germany after he was taken prisoner while fighting in Tunisia, in 1943.
She has two children, Marjorie (who eventually marries Jacques Portet) and Robert, a West Pointer and army aviator qualified in rotary and fixed wing aircraft.
While commandant of the camp, after receiving Bellmon's parole he takes him to the site of the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by the Soviets and provides him with evidence that it was the NKVD and not the Germans who murdered the Poles, requesting that he get it to the Western Allies.
For nearly five years after the war he was a prisoner in a Gulag camp, and was identified and repatriated by Sandy Felter, whereupon von Greiffenberg found his daughter had married Craig Lowell and had a son named Peter Paul.
In addition to having been her father's captor during the war, Bob Bellmon and Graf von Grieffenberg had been students at the French Saumur Cavalry School together and the families grew close.
After his repatriation to the United States following Operation Dragon Rouge and his eventual release from the hospital (he was suffering from intestinal parasites and a couple of rare African diseases) and his promotion to major, he is tasked by General Hanrahan with creating a team of exclusively black Green Berets that can defeat the Simba rebels.
He is instrumental in thwarting Che's attempt to prove himself as The Great Revolutionary Leader in the Congo, running him out of the country with his tail between his legs as an utter failure.
During the run-up to Operation Earnest, the CIA station chief in Buenos Aires told him that he knew how he'd come to receive his third Silver Star, and that "If you ever want to change employers, give me a call."
While in Vietnam, Geoff received a battlefield commission after taking command of a Special Forces base during a Vietcong assault when all the officers and noncoms senior to him were killed or wounded.
After Vietnam, his assignments are not discussed, save for the fact that he commanded an Airborne regiment that jumped into Grenada as part of Operation Urgent Fury, as mentioned in the Epilogue to The Generals.
He qualifies as a Green Beret in what is described by General Hanrahan as a "jackleg course" prior to Operation Dragon Rouge, a joint Belgian-American mission to rescue civilians threatened by the Simba rebels in the Congo.
A Norwich University graduate, Captain Oliver served in Vietnam, commanding the 170th Assault Helicopter Company as a First Lieutenant (in a berth the TO&E requires be filled by a field grade officer) until relieved after a couple of months by a major.
As the only unwounded officer, he took command and led the Green Beret A-Team to safety through the jungle, for which he was awarded the Silver Star and unusually for an aviator, the Combat Infantry Badge.
When his sister, whose husband managed the place, made such an offer in an attempt to buy the truck stop out from under him for about 10% of its fair market value, Oliver consulted Craig Lowell, who put one of his investment bank's real estate lawyers onto the case.
They fell in love during the run-up to Operation Monte Cristo and married after she divorces her husband, Colonel Thomas Sims, USAF, whom Lowell rescued from a POW camp.
Wojinski further assists Lowell and Fwlter during the climactic prison raid in The Generals and in the eplouge is mentioned as retiring from the army and opening a car dealership in Wilkes-Barre PA.