Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2016

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Waters’ father, John Knight Waters, was also an Army
lifer. As a lieutenant colonel during World War II, he was
captured at the Battle of Kasserine Pass and spent “two
years, two months and 10 days” in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He served in Korea as well and rose to the rank of general.
When it came time for George Patton Waters to serve
his country, he chose to do so in the Navy rather than
the Army and in relative anonymity, going by the name
George Waters and insisting, when asked, that his nick-
name, Pat, “was just a good name.” Eventually, his ship-
mates aboard the USS Braine discovered that his father,
grandfather and uncle – Patton’s son – were all generals.
“It was more my dad than my grandfather,” Waters
said. “I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to
make it on my own.”
Waters spent five years in the Navy, about six months
of that time near Vietnam aboard the Braine, a destroyer.
His dreams to become a naval aviator were dashed by his
less-than-perfect eyesight, so, “fascinated by radar,” he was
trained as a combat information officer, retiring in 1970 as
a lieutenant. Prior to his military career, he attended Nor-
wich University in Vermont and graduated from Pfeiffer
College near Charlotte with a business degree.
When he left the Navy, Waters went to work at Coca-
Cola as an administrative assistant. Three hundred sixty
four days later, he left the corporate world behind, bor-
rowed some money and started his own business.
“It’s better to be in business for yourself,” he said,
then went out and proved it by establishing a successful
land development company in the Baton Rouge, Louisi-
ana, area.
He retired in 2005, and his son still runs the busi-
ness. That doesn’t mean, however, that Waters spends his
time in a rocking chair on his back porch. Though he
once shunned the spotlight of being the grandson of an
American military icon, that is no longer the case. He is a
member of the board of directors of the General George
Patton Museum and Center of Leadership in Fort Knox,
Kentucky. When he visits the museum, usually around
four times a year, he now flies commercial, even though
he is a private pilot and a longtime and active member of
the East Cooper Pilots Association, which is based at the
Mount Pleasant Regional Airport.
A room in his Mount Pleasant home dedicated to his
grandfather features a portrait of the general painted by
Polish artist Boleslaw Czedekowski. Patton sat for the por-
trait shortly after the Germans surrendered in May 1945;
the artist finished it after Patton passed away.
Waters has collected a wealth of other Patton memora-
DEBBIE MARTINEZ
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