He attended the local public schools and graduated from Tri-State College (now Trine University) in 1914 receiving a degree in education.
Hershey taught military science at the Ohio State University and then served in the general staff as G-4 at the Department of Hawaii.
In October 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt promoted him to brigadier general and named him executive officer of the Selective Service System.
On 24 October 1967, in response to increasing demonstrations against military recruiting on college campuses, Hershey issued Local Board Memorandum No.
Two days later, he sent a letter to local boards suggesting that violators of any portion of the Selective Service Act or Regulations be treated as delinquent.
The most explicit overruling of the Memorandum and Letter came in a decision from the United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit in Bucher v. Selective Service System[2] on 2 January 1970, which ruled that there is "no statutory authorization for such reclassification," but did not rule on First Amendment issues: Since we have reached the conclusion that the delinquency reclassifications here are invalid for the separate and independent reasons that (1) they violate the constitutional procedural due process guarantees of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and (2) they lack statutory authorization, we find it unnecessary to advert to the plaintiffs' contention that the reclassifications violate their First Amendment rights.
On 10 October 1969 president Richard Nixon announced that Hershey would leave the office of Director of the Selective Service on 16 February 1970.
He was one of the very few members of the U.S. Army to be allowed to serve beyond the mandatory retirement age of 64 since it was established shortly after the American Civil War.
Hershey died in Angola, Indiana on 20 May 1977 (only a month after his wife's death) and he is interred in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery.