Caliva, Narce

Narce Caliva was born on September 7, 1929 in Salinas, California.  His father originally came from the Philippines and had emigrated to California via Hawaii.  In California he met his soon-to-be wife, daughter in a family who had come to the United States from Yugoslavia.  Narce grew up in California against the backdrop of World War two, dealing with rationing and other wartime restrictions and expecting he might be in the war effort himself one day.   Postwar he graduated from Salinas Junior College in 1948.  He enlisted in the US Army later that year.  After basic training he attended Officer Candidate School and earned his commission.  He was ordered to Korea and arrived at Busan in July 1951, where he was assigned as a truck officer in charge of leading supply convoys, initially with what was then termed a coloured truck battalion.  The army desegregated during the Korean War, and Narce experienced that firsthand.  He was later assigned to investigative duty at Geoje Island POW camp, and then finished the war as special courts martial counsel.  Once he was released from active duty in September 1953, he graduated from Sacramento State College and Thunderbird School of Global Management.  He joined the Red Cross and was deployed all over the world helping those in need, with a focus on the military.  That included time spent in Vietnam at the heart of that conflict in the 1960s, where Narce acted as a director, supervising Red Cross efforts, a job that often took him into the heart of the conflict.  Narce eventually rose to Director of the Red Cross in Europe.  Crestwood students were able to zoom with Narce during the pandemic spring of 2021.