Staff Sergeant Malcolm Stevenson Forbes - A Soldier's Story

 


Staff Sergeant Malcolm Stevenson Forbes was born on August 19, 1919, in Englewood, New Jersey. He graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1937 and Princeton University with a Bachelor's in Public and International Affairs. 

He enlisted in the US Army on December 8, 1942, trained as a machine gunner, and deployed to the European Theater of WWII with the 84th Infantry. Staff Sergeant Forbes received a gunshot to the thigh during Operation Clipper in November 1944. He spent months in the hospital and was honorably discharged in August 1945.


After returning to New Jersey, Staff Sergeant Forbes won a seat in the New Jersey Senate from 1951 to 1957 and attempted to win the governorship of New Jersey.   He left politics in 1957.

Staff Sergeant Forbes joined the family business, Forbes Magazine, in 1957. He took sole control of the magazine after his brother Bruce's death in 1964.

He took up hot air ballooning in 1972 and set six world records, including being the first person to fly across the continental United States by hot air balloon.  

Staff Sergeant Forbes was also an avid collector of art and history. He had an extensive collection of Harley-Davidson cycles and more than 365 pieces by Peter Carl Faberge. Staff Sergeant Forbes even started a motorcycle club called "The Capitalist Tools."

He died on February 24, 1990, and his ashes rest on the grounds of his Fiji estate.

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a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Salem, Virginia. 

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