BG George B. Price (USA, Ret.)

Brigadier General George Baker Price (US Army, Ret.) was born August 28, 1929 in Laurel, Mississippi to James and Katherine Price; his sister Leontyne was born two years earlier. He attended Oak Park Vocational High School and South Carolina State College (SCSU now university), graduating in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science in Education. He was a distinguished military graduate and was commissioned in the Regular Army as a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry Branch of Service.

In 1954, he married Georgianna (née Hunter) who became a devoted army wife. They shared 51 years of marriage before her death in 2006. Together they had four children: Katherine (Benny Dukes), James (Donna), William (Soney), and Robert (Barbara). In 2009, he married Dr. Laura Kafka, a performing artist, musician, and language educator. They delighted in 15 years of marriage before his peaceful passing at home in Columbia, Maryland on Sunday morning, November 17, 2024 of cancer that presented one month before his death. The large family includes twelve grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren, sister Leontyne Price, nephews Joe and George Hunter III, niece Terri Hunter Royster, brother-in-law Leonard Kafka (Sharon). He was predeceased by George Hunter, Jr. and further survived by many close relatives, colleagues, and friends.

General Price’s military career spanned over twenty-seven years of dedicated service to our nation until his retirement in 1978.

He attended the Infantry Officers Basic Course of Instruction at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was assigned to Company L, 179th Infantry Regiment in Korea. He was wounded and evacuated in the Battle for Old Baldy. He was subsequently assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. He was then assigned to Specialist Training Regiment Fort Dix, New Jersey. His next assignment was attending the Infantry Officers Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. It is noteworthy that General Price also attended Airborne (Parachutist) and Ranger Schools where he was awarded the coveted Parachutist Badge and Ranger Tab.

After completing the Infantry Officers Advanced Course, General Price was assigned to the 15th Ordinance Battalion (a Nuclear Weapons Depot Battalion). He was then assigned to the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas followed by an assignment to Vietnam where he served with the 1st Infantry Division of the Vietnamese Army.

After Vietnam, he was selected to attend the Army Command and General Staff College followed by an assignment to the Office of the Chief of Reserve Components at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. General Price also served as a Force Analyst in the Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.

General Price was assigned from the Pentagon to command the 4th Battalion (Mechanized), 20th Infantry, 193rd Brigade in the Panama Canal Zone. He was later assigned as the Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Southern Command, Fort Amador, Canal Zone. While he was assigned to Panama he was selected to attend the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

While attending the Army War College, Price attended graduate school at Shippensburg State College (now university) in Pennsylvania. After completing the Course of Instruction at the Army War College, he earned a master's degree in counseling psychology from Shippensburg.

From Pennsylvania, General Price was assigned as Commander 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division in Aschaffenburg, Germany. His next assignment was Chief of Staff, 8th Infantry Division, Bad Kreuznach, Germany. It was while he was in this assignment that he was selected for promotion to Brigadier General with an assignment as Assistant Division Commander 1st Armored Division in Nuremberg, Germany. General Price served concurrently as Military Community Commander in both Aschaffenburg and Nuremberg, Germany. General Price’s last active-duty assignment was as Chief of Staff, First US Army, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. General Price’s career spanned over twenty-seven years of dedicated service to our nation until his retirement in 1978.

His decorations included the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Air Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Purple Heart, Parachutist Badge, Ranger Tab, and Combat Infantryman Badge with Star.

After he retired from active duty, General Price worked in the telecommunications industry, technical engineering, and as a sought after consultant. He was affiliated with many civic organizations including the Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF), Retired Military Officers Association (Founding Member), The Rocks, Inc. (founding member/past president/Rock of the Year), Board of Visitors at the US Military Academy at West Point, Minority Veterans Advisory Committee to Secretary of the VA (past chairman), Vietnam Veterans Memorial board of advisors, Women’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial board of advisors, Howard County Police Foundation board of directors, and the National Urban League’s Military and Veterans Advisory Committee.

General Price was a 76-year member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Women’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, NAACP, South Carolina State University Alumni Association, Buffalo Soldiers Association, Association of the United States Army, and Army War College Alumni.

In 2018, the Board of Trustees of the Army War College Foundation selected him as an "Outstanding Alumnus of the Year of the Army War College" for his "… incredible contributions to our nation following his military retirement." He was extremely proud of his association with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("The Wall") in Washington, DC. In 2023, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (builders of "The Wall") honored General Price with a "Lifetime Service Award" for his more than 40 years of dedicated advocacy which resulted in building the memorial. For the past 42 years, including Veterans Day 2024, he attended every Veterans Day ceremony at “The Wall” except two. He delivered remarks at “The Wall” and other VVMF events on several occasions. General Price and his wife, Dr. Laura Kafka-Price, had the pleasure of appearing on two programs together.

He was equally passionate about supporting his sister Vietnam veterans to include nurses and all women involved in the conflict. When he learned of the fierce opposition to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, he immediately aligned himself with Captain Diane Carlson Evans, ANC RVN (US Army, Ret.) and supported her efforts to have the Vietnam Women’s Memorial built.

While growing up in segregated Laurel, Mississippi, his aspiration was to serve his country. He played football in high school and college and led Oak Park Vocational High School to two state football championships. He subsequently attended college on an athletic scholarship and joined the ROTC program his freshman year. While at SCSU, he was an all-conference quarterback and led the conference in rushing for his position; he also punted and was captain of the team at both alma maters. Coach Oliver C. Dawson at SCSU often said Price “understood the game so well that he was like a coach on the field himself. He applied what he learned in practice during the week to the game on Saturday.”

In 2023, SCSU honored him with a gala black-tie event. Together with the Chisholm Foundation in his hometown, SCSU established four ROTC student scholarships in his name. General Price was the first graduate from South Carolina State University's ROTC program who rose to the rank of Brigadier General from the Bulldog Brigade.

After his sister, the legendary Leontyne Price, retired from singing on the opera stage in 1985, her brother became her personal manager. He travelled with her throughout the country as she maintained her recital career until she retired from active singing in 1997. He continued to manage all aspects of her career.

Both General Price and his sister credit their parents, James, a worker at the Eastman-Gardiner Lumber Mill and Katie, a prominent midwife, for their success. Their parents, along with Saint Paul Methodist Church (one of the prominent black churches in Laurel, located less than 100 feet from the home where they were born), the teachers at Oak Park, and the patriotic community contributed to the exceptional Americans that they became. General Price often said that Laurel offered the best of what small towns in America are all about.

The Price family would like to thank Dr. David Leichtling, MD, General Price’s physician at Columbia Medical Practice, for his outstanding medical care of more than 30 years, the entire Walter Reed National Military Medical Center staff, especially pulmonologist Dr. Robert Browning, MD and pulmonology fellow Dr. Minki Hong, MD, oncology/hematology fellow Dr. Peter Beale, MD, the Internal Medicine Blue Team, the nursing staff of Eagle Three Center Ward and Four West, and Dr. Rachel Hilary Read, MD in Executive Medicine. Special thanks to Dr. Yvonne T. Wilson, MD. Nurse Lilian Kusona of Gilchrist Hospice Care of Columbia, Maryland, and Fobella Nzobella, RN of Better Days Homecare, LLC and her staff Felix Atangcho, RN, CNAs Henriette Pouatene, Claudia Bucknor, and Nessie Dukuray, and the loving support of a wide circle of extended family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

Visitation will be on Saturday, November 23 at Witzke Funeral Home, 5555 Twin Knolls Rd., Columba, MD from 3-5 PM and 7-9 PM with a special presentation at 4:00 PM by the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that donations be made in the name of BG George B. Price, (USA, Ret.) to:

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22201

Vietnam Women’s Memorial Fund, c/o Eastern National, 470 Maryland Dr., Suite 1, Fort Washington, PA 19034

Harlem Educational Activities Fund, 2090 7th Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10027

South Carolina State University ROTC Department, 300 College Street NE, Orangeburg, SC 29117

South Carolina State University Athletics, 300 College Street NE, Orangeburg, SC 29117

The ROCKS, Inc., P.O. Box 47435, District Heights, MD 20753

Columbia (MD) Alumni Chapter, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., P.O. Box 775, Columbia, MD 21045