General Moore, an 8th generation Kentuckian, was born in Bardstown, Kentucky on February 13, 1922, the son of Mary Beeler Crume Moore and Harold Gregory Moore, Sr.

He graduated from St. Joseph Prep. School in 1940 and from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point N.Y. in 1945. He holds both a Master's Degree in International Affairs from George Washington University (1964), and attended Harvard University from 1967 to 1968 on a Fellowship at the Center for International Affairs. He is also a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the Armed Forces Staff College, and the Navy War College.

He commanded two infantry companies from 1952 to 1953 in the Korean War, and served in the Vietnam War as an infantry battalion and brigade commander from 1965 to 1966. Among other awards for valor in those wars, he holds the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor. In November 1965 his 7th Cavalry battalion of 450 men fought and won the first major battle of the war between U.S. forces and over 2000 North Vietnamese regulars who had surrounded Moore and his men. In two wars, he never lost a man prisoner or missing in action.

His peace-time service includes duty in several Airborne (Paratrooper) units, in Japan, Norway, the Pentagon, and as an instructor at West Point. For three years he jump tested experimental parachutes and other paratrooper gear for the Army, Air Force, and the C.I.A. He also has commanded the 7th Infantry Division in Korea, Fort Ord, Ca., and the Army Personnel Center in Alexandria, Va.

General Moore is a Master Parachutist with over 300 jumps, who pioneered Sky Diving in 1949. He is an Army Aviator and holds two Combat Infantry Badges. He was promoted ahead of the majority of his West Point classmates six times, and was the first Army officer in his class to be promoted to one, two, three star general. He was listed in Marquis "Who's Who in America" in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. His last assignment on active duty was Personnel Chief of the U.S. Army. He retired from the Army in 1977 after 32 years of commissioned service, and was Executive Vice President of Crested Butte Ski Area in Colorado for four years. In 1986 he formed a computer software company with sales in all fifty states.

An avid, lifelong outdoorsman, he has climbed, trekked, or ski-toured in the Colorado Rockies, the Cascade Range, Alaska, the mountains of Northern Hokkaido in Japan, the Tien Shan Wilderness of Uzbekistan Republic, former U.S.S.R., and the Finnmark Plateau and Hardanger Glacier in Norway.

Moore is co-author of the National Best-Seller and highly-acclaimed book, We Were Soldiers Once-And Young published by Random House in 1992. This book chronicles the savage Ia Drang Valley Battle of November 1965 in which Gen. Moore was a Lt. Colonel Battalion Commander. He returned to Vietnam in 1990 and 1991 to meet with the North Vietnamese commanders who opposed him and got their input into his book. He is the only American general to have done that. Another first occurred in 1993 when he returned again to Vietnam and walked the battlefield with his former enemies.

Moore and Julia B. Compton were married in 1949 and have three sons and two daughters, all college graduates and all married with children.

Harold and Mrs. Moore live in Crested Butte, Colorado and Auburn, Alabama. General Moore, a dedicated Military Historian, lectures and teaches on Leadership and the Vietnam and Korean Wars at the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy where he has been three times selected the Distinguished Professional in Residence, and at various colleges and Universities.