Sam began his formal education in the fall of 1929, daily walking the two miles one-way to Rice High School and return to the farm.
[6] Two weeks later he jogged seven miles through a rainy night from the family farm to the local National Guard armory, where he added two years to his actual age to qualify and was sworn into military service.
In 1943, already a first lieutenant at the age of 19, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and subsequently responded to a presidential call for volunteers for "a dangerous and hazardous mission" to be undertaken by an elite regimental-sized unit.
This move resulted in his becoming chief reconnaissance officer for the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), better known as Merrill's Marauders, which operated behind enemy lines in Burma during World War II.
[8] Upon returning to the US from the China-Burma- India Theater as a combat veteran in fall 1944 with his fifth consecutive appointment in hand to the US Military Academy, Wilson was denied admission to West Point for medical reasons.
His tour in Burma had ended with multiple medical ailments, including malaria, amoebic dysentery, mite typhus and severe malnutrition.
Noteworthy extra-curricular activities during this period included being assigned to the State Department's Diplomatic Pouch and Courier Service, which led to extensive travels throughout the Iron Curtain countries and the Soviet Union, as well as to other countries peripheral to the USSR; functioning as an official interpreter in Berlin, Potsdam and Vienna; and serving in a liaison capacity with elements of the Soviet armed forces in East Germany and in Eastern Austria.
Newly promoted to major, Wilson returned to Washington and was assigned to the Army General Staff (Intelligence) in fall 1951, where he handled a variety of sensitive special projects until reassignment to attend the Infantry Officers Advanced Course in 1953.
Upon graduation from this course, he was placed on special assignment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) matters as a consultant on Soviet affairs.
[citation needed] In June 1961, he was appointed Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, serving in that capacity for the next two years and playing a key staff support role at such critical moments as the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
In this capacity, he was employed at the temporary rank-equivalent of a class one foreign service officer and posted to Vietnam as Associate Director for Field Operations, where he was concerned with pacification and nation building efforts by the Americans and South Vietnamese.
He was shifted from this post in late 1969 to the position of Assistant Commandant of the newly named US Army John F. Kennedy Institute for Military Assistance (formerly the US Army Special Warfare School), where he again worked on doctrinal concepts pertaining to the role and mission of US military advisors—especially in insurgency, counter-insurgency and nation building environments—and played a key role in the establishment of the Military Assistance Officers Program (MAOP), which subsequently was merged with the Army's Foreign Area Specialist Training Program (FASTP) under the designation Foreign Area Officers Program (FAOP).
His insights into Soviet strategic and doctrinal thinking gained thereby were subsequently recognized as critically useful to policy makers and planners of the US national security establishment.
Need I remind this particular audience that dedicated and courageous men and women who risk their lives to help America can be exposed and destroyed?
[O]ur primary function is to provide the leadership of this nation with the deepest possible understanding of the military, political, social, and economic climate of countries that affect vital American interests.
[11] In 1993, Wilson was inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame "for heroism, extraordinary achievement, and continued service to his country and the special operations community.