page_title: Vicente T. Blaz
section_title: Marine Corps career
hierarchical_section_title: Vicente T. Blaz / Marine Corps career
caption_attribution_description: English: Brigadier General Vicente T. Blaz, USMC (Retired); Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Guam (elected 1984) Source: Official Marine Corps biography URL: http://hqinet001.hqmc.usmc.mil/HD/IMAGES/Whos_Who/Hi_Res/Blaz_VT.jpg Archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20061006014812/http://hqinet001.hqmc.usmc.mil/HD/Historical/Whos_Who/Blaz_VT.htm
context_page_description: Vicente Tomás Garrido Blaz, also known as Ben Blaz, was a Chamorro United States Marine Corps Brigadier General from the United States territory of Guam. Blaz served in the Marine Corps from 1951 until July 1, 1980. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Reserve Affairs, Headquarters Marine Corps, Washington, D.C..
  Blaz was elected the delegate to Congress from Guam in 1984 as a Republican. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985 until 1993.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the Korean War, Blaz joined the Marine Corps Reserve and attended Officer Candidate School. He graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps after graduation, and served in Japan during the war. He subsequently attended George Washington University, Washington, D.C., where he received a Master of Arts degree in 1963.
  Service schools Blaz attended include the Navy's School of Naval Justice for legal officers, Newport, Rhode Island; the Army's Artillery and Guided Missile School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma; the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, Virginia; and, the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island, where he was designated a Distinguished Graduate. His thesis, The Cross of Micronesia, was published in the Naval War College Review and entered verbatim in the Congressional Record in August 1971.
  General Blaz served in a variety of command and staff billets throughout the Marine Corps, highlighted in 1972 by his assignment as Commanding Officer, 9th Marine Regiment, which was one of the major units involved in the liberation of his native Guam during World War II.
  From September 1972 to August 1975, General Blaz served as Chief, United Nations and Maritime Matters Branch, International Negotiations Division, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C. In this assignment, he represented the Joint Chiefs of Staff on U.S. Delegations to several international multi-lateral negotiations in Helsinki (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and Geneva (Law of War) and was an action officer on Law of the Sea matters.
  In December 1974, the University of Guam conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws on General Blaz.
  Blaz retired from the Marine Corps with the rank of Brigadier General in 1980. As of February 2010 Blaz is the highest ranked Chamorro to have served in the Marine Corps. He was a professor at the University of Guam, and was then elected as a Republican to the House in 1984.
caption: Blaz as a Marine
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