The late Brigadier General Chester A. Files, formerly of Barrington, RI, had a distinguished military career that spanned thirty-five years. He began in the Rhode Island National Guard as an enlisted man, and covered four different periods of conflict starting in 1916 with the Mexican Border Skirmish as a “mule skinner”, and ending as a General officer with the Korean War. A graduate of Brown University, he retired from active service and the Guard in 1951. His civilian endeavors covered a period of twenty-eight years as a prominent member of the State’s financial investment community.