Lieutenant Rufus C. Phillips III was commissioned as an Infantry Officer upon graduation from Officer Candidate School class 75-53, 10 November 1953. | After Airborne School, he reported to Korea, and shortly thereafter to Vietnam for the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Saigon. In Vietnam, he served as the sole advisor to two Vietnamese Army pacification operations in 1955 and received the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit before discharging from the Army. | He returned to Vietnam in 1956 as a CIA civilian Case Officer and later served in Laos until 1959. At the request of President Kennedy, in 1962 he organized and led a special counterinsurgency effort in the USAgency for International Development's Saigon Mission, called Rural Affairs. There he supported the "Strategic Hamlet Program." From 1964-1968 Phillips served as a consultant to AID and the State Department, making five trips to Vietnam. He also served as an advisor to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. | In 1971, Rufus Phillips was elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from the Dranesville District (McLean, Great Falls and Herndon) serving until 1976. He became Chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and was a member of the Metro Board. He was named Washingtonian of the Year in 1976 by the Washingtonian Magazine for leadership in planning in Fairfax County and the region. He also had a business career as president of a consulting engineering firm with projects in the USAnd abroad and as an independent consultant, involved in planning and designing mainly airport projects in over forty foreign countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. He served as Chairman of the Business Advisory Council to the President's National Commission for the Review of Antitrust Laws and Procedures in 1978. He also served for a month as a volunteer in Afghanistan assisting the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA). | Publications authored by Lieutenant Phillips include: "Why Vietnam Matters," Naval Institute Press, 2008. He was a contributor on, "Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam 1960-1965," Naval Institute Press, 2001.