Born in Hudson Falls, Rear Admiral Almon C. Wilson served in the United States Navy from 1941 until his retirement in 1984. From apprentice seaman in the V-12 College Program in 1944, he was commissioned an Ensign and Served on the USS Liddle (APD-60) which participated in four amphibious assault landings in the South Pacific.
After World War II, he earned a B.A. from Union College in 1946 and Doctor of Medicine from Albany Medical College in 1952. In 1965, he became Commanding Officer of the Third Medical Battalion, Third Marine Division, in Danang, RVN. It was here that he formulated the ideas which led to the Naval Fleet Hospital Program. He was known as the Father of the Naval Fleet Hospital Program. Under his leadership, the 3rd Med succeeded in reducing the mortality rate of wounded U.S. Marines to the lowest figure in wartime history, for which it was awarded the Navy Unit Citation.
In 1966 he became Chief of Surgery, U.S. Naval Hospital, Yokosuka, Japan. During subsequent tours in Washington, D.C., at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BuMed) Resource Planning Division, Admiral Wilson played a major role in design and construction of naval hospitals. Concurrently, he served as personal physician to Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1975, in his first Flag officer assignment as Assistant Chief for Material Resources in BuMed, while concurrently overseeing Navy hospital construction, he played a major role in the procurement of the Navy‘s modern Hospital Ships, the USS Mercy and USS Comfort. Adm. Wilson became the first medical flag officer assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters. In 1981, he became the Fleet Hospital Program Manager, the first medical officer to be appointed a major acquisition program manager. The Fleet Hospitals, which were deployed in the Persian Gulf and Iraqi wars, have transformed Navy Medicine. In 1982 to 1984, he returned to BuMed as head of the Resources Division and Deputy to the Surgeon General. Adm. Wilson retired in 1984 and resided in Poulsbo, Washington.
Adm. Wilson was retroactively awarded the Surface Warfare Officer Qualification Insignia. In 1982, he was only the third officer to be retroactively qualified. In July 1991, following the Persian Gulf War, Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III officially commended Admiral Wilson “... I know that the Fleet Hospitals and Hospital Ships were your goals...I assure you that the effort you put forth to achieve those goals paid off handsomely...Our Navy‘s medical response in Operations Desert Shield/Storm was built upon those Fleet Hospitals and Hospital Ships that were the focus of your dreams... The Navy Department‘s successful medical support in Desert Shield/Desert Storm proved to the nation and its allies the wisdom of your efforts. Thank you and Godspeed.”
Admiral Wilson left his credo: “Change is ever present and so is inertia; courage comes in many forms, adventure is where you find it – usually just around the corner; career is all that you make of it.”