Partly-printed DS as president, signed “Wm. H. Taft,” one page, 21 x 16, November 30, 1912. President Taft appoints Carl Jay Ballinger as a “Second Lieutenant of Infantry in the service of the United States.” Signed crisply at the conclusion by William H. Taft and countersigned by acting Secretary of War Robert Shaw Oliver. The blue War Office seal remains affixed to the lower left. In fine condition.
Carl Jay Ballinger (1885–1956), a Kansas native, worked for the U.S. Geological Survey before joining the U.S. Infantry in 1912. He was stationed in Texas and Mexico during the Border War (1910-1919) and he was later assigned to garrison duty in Hawaii. He was serving in Arizona when he retired as a major from the U.S. Army in 1922, and he later worked as a high school U.S. Army ROTC instructor in Iowa and California.
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