Lieutenant General Floyd Lavinius Parks (9 February 1896 – 10 March 1959) was a United States Army officer who served with distinction during World War II.

As such, he participated in Operation Market Garden that directed air drops into the Netherlands behind the German lines which were preventing Allied forces from crossing the Rhine river.

After the war, Parks commanded the US Sector in Berlin before going to Washington, D.C., to become the chief of the Public Information Division for the Army.

After service in Hawaii, he became chief of the Information Department, whereafter he was known as the "father of modern Army public affairs."

He served as a machine gun instructor with the 65th Engineers, the US Army's first Tank Corps unit, under the command of Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1918 to 1923 at Camp Colt, Pennsylvania.

From 1928 to 1932 he was at West Point as the aide-de-camp to Major General William R. Smith, the superintendent of the United States Military Academy.

[3] He then attended the Command and General Staff School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, graduating in June 1935.

[3] In this position he released to the press that General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower was not planning to run as a candidate for either party, Democratic or Republican, in the 1948 elections.

[7] The following year he won the All Army Golf Championship, Senior Division, held in San Antonio, Texas, on August 13, 1949.

[4] Parks became the executive director of the National Rifle Association in March 1956, a position he held until his death.

[10] Parks died on March 10, 1959, after a long illness at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.