A former lifeguard, Bank would travel around the world to do as much lifeguarding as possible, and ended up learning fluent French and German. Seeing war coming, he returned to the U.S. and joined the Army, and in 1943 stepped forward when the call went out for foreign-language-speaking volunteers for “special assignments.”
Among other missions, he parachuted into France in advance of the Normandy invasion to organize French Resistance forces to slow down German reinforcements. Bank so excelled in his Office of Strategic Services role that after the war he was asked to put together a new military unit for special operations. In 1952, he recruited 2,300 men for the first Special Forces unit.
“I wanted none but the best,” Bank said later. And then “we had to teach them the classic aim and purpose of their service: the organizing of civilian natives into guerrilla forces in enemy-held territory.” He asked that his new unit get to wear a special beret to set them apart, perhaps purple, wine-red or green, but military regulations forbade it until President John Kennedy gave a special order to allow it. Kennedy “picked the green because he was an Irishman,” Bank remembered — and the “Green Berets” was born. He died April 1 in California. He was 101.