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James Emory Mace

Brigadier General James Emory Mace (1940-2026), Nancy Mace's father: a Vietnam War hero and Distinguished Service Cross recipient, The Citadel's most decorated living graduate, and its Commandant of Cadets during his daughter's years as its first female cadet. He is the towering figure of her memoir and her public self-image.

Official U.S. Army portrait of Brigadier General James Emory Mace
Credit: South Carolina Department of Veterans' Affairs. State government work. Source

Brigadier General James Emory Mace (December 12, 1940 to April 14, 2026) was a decorated United States Army combat officer, a Vietnam War veteran awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel from 1997 to 2005. He was the father of U.S. Representative Nancy Mace, and The Citadel calls him "the most decorated living graduate of The Citadel" (The Citadel; The Citadel Alumni Association).

He is on Maceopedia because he is the load-bearing figure of Nancy Mace's own story. In her 2001 memoir In the Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel, she casts him as her hero, her standard, and the reason she followed him into the Corps of Cadets, where he was, at the same time, her Commandant. That relationship, her hero worship of him and her lifelong search for his approval, is a recurring theme she has returned to in her own words for a quarter century, most recently in a February 2026 Politico profile. This entry gathers his documented biography and her own account of him.

"Poor but proud": early life in the lowcountry

Emory Mace was born in Hampton, South Carolina, in 1940. His mother, Iva Marie Mace (nee Thomas), served 42 years as the Hampton County Director of the Department of Social Services; a county building is named for her. His father, James Archibald Mace, was a lawyer and former Mayor of Hampton who later served as lead counsel for Santee Cooper during the building of Lakes Marion and Moultrie (The Citadel Alumni Association). As a teenager he worked summers digging ditches for the state highway department.

In In the Company of Men, Nancy Mace tells a harder, more mythic version of his origins that she was raised on:

"I grew up in the home of The Citadel's most decorated living graduate, Brigadier General Emory Mace. My father grew up 'poor but proud,' to use the local phrase. Dad was very young when my grandfather died, so from an early age my father and grandmother struggled to make ends meet in the low country of South Carolina."

"My dad has always said that it was The Citadel that changed his life. Among his other jobs, Dad drove the local school bus during high school to make ends meet. It was through this job that he met a Citadel graduate who took a liking to my father and wanted to help him ... he offered to sponsor Dad for admission to The Citadel."

(Nancy Mace, In the Company of Men, 2001.)

A note on the record: the memoir's "poor but proud" framing, including the detail that her grandfather died young and left the family struggling, is not fully matched by the documented biography, which describes Emory's father as a practicing lawyer and former mayor of Hampton with a long career (his mother's decades of county social-services work is confirmed). The rags-to-honor arc is her family's telling; the public record describes a more established household.

Citadel cadet, Class of 1963: "Bulldog"

Cadet James Emory Mace in the 1963 Citadel yearbook

Cadet James Emory Mace, "Bulldog," of Hampton, S.C., in the 1963 Citadel yearbook (The Sphinx). Source: The Citadel.

Mace entered The Citadel and graduated in 1963, earning the cadet nickname "Bulldog" (Post and Courier). The legend of his cadet years, the stories his daughter says she grew up hearing, runs through her memoir:

"From the time I was a little girl, I heard stories of my father's college days. His scholarship and loans didn't begin to cover all his expenses, so to make up the deficit, my dad would go into the swamps near the Ashley River at night and poach alligators like he had as a boy. It was a dangerous but profitable business that paid his tuition for four years."

She recounts him chaining a live alligator to the parade field overnight to bewilder the officers the next morning, making his freshmen pluck the ducks he shot, and, as a senior, throwing a live alligator into the room of a "knob" who was not toeing the line. Her verdict on the man behind the tales: "Nobody messed with my dad." (In the Company of Men.)

Vietnam and the Distinguished Service Cross

Mace attended Ranger School and deployed to Vietnam twice: first as an advisor to a Republic of Vietnam airborne battalion in 1965 to 1966, and again as a rifle company commander and brigade operations officer with the 1st Air Cavalry Division in 1968 to 1969 (The Citadel Alumni Association).

For his actions over three days in December 1968 near Dong Xoai, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. Army's second-highest award for valor. The official citation (General Orders No. 838, Headquarters U.S. Army Vietnam, March 9, 1969) reads in part:

"Captain Mace distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions from 2 to 4 December 1968 while commanding his company on a search and clear mission near Dong Xoai. When his point element came under heavy fire, Captain Mace moved forward and directed his men in a flanking movement which forced the enemy to retreat from their bunkers ... Braving intense enemy fire, he organized a rescue party and led it from the night location to rescue the crew of an ammunition re-supply helicopter shot down by the communists ... After exposing himself to the vicious enemy fire to carry a wounded man to safety, Captain Mace stood up to spot the enemy gunners, personally killing two and wounding three of them. Finding that the foe was attempting to encircle his company, he ordered a withdrawal and remained behind to direct rocket artillery to within one hundred meters of his position ... Captain Mace's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service."

(Full citation: Military Times Hall of Valor.)

In her memoir, his daughter wrote that this was the man she grew up beneath:

"The walls of our house were lined with medals for bravery in battle, and I knew my dad had risked his life over and over again to save his men in battle. For as long as I can remember, my father has been my hero."

His full list of decorations, as recorded by The Citadel Alumni Association: "the Distinguished Service Cross with V Device, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with 'V' Device and four Oak Leaf Clusters (three for Valor), the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal and Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal with 'V' Device and three Oak Leaf Clusters." He wore the Ranger Tab, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and the Master Parachutist Badge, with more than 500 jumps.

Army career and the Ranger Hall of Fame

Over a 28-year Army career, Mace served across the airborne and infantry force. Reporting to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1985 as a special projects officer, he authored FM 7-85 (Ranger Unit Operations), the Army's field manual for Ranger operations. He completed his active duty as Chief of Staff, 4th U.S. Army, at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, retiring in 1991 (The Citadel Alumni Association).

In 2007 he was inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame, the first graduate of The Citadel to receive that honor, recognized "for demonstrating extraordinary valor and unparalleled leadership throughout his active-duty Army career" (SC House Resolution 5552).

Commandant of Cadets, 1997 to 2005

Mace was appointed Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel in February 1997, months after the college admitted its first women, and he held the post through 2005, the longest tenure of any Commandant in the institution's history. He is credited with steadying the school through coeducation and with sweeping discipline reforms: prohibiting harassment during meals and study periods, eliminating sophomore rank authority over freshmen, banning physical contact with first-year cadets, limiting "knob knowledge" requirements, and shortening orientation. In 1997 the Corps adopted a new Citadel creed he wrote (Post and Courier).

The official Commandant of Cadets portrait of Brigadier General Emory Mace

The official Commandant of Cadets portrait of Brig. Gen. J. Emory Mace, unveiled in 2005 and hung in The Citadel Library. Source: The Citadel Alumni Association (Class of 1963).

He had not favored the change he was hired to manage. "The wife and I were not pro-females going there," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009. On leaving the post in 2005, he said simply: "I feel I made a small difference in the life of The Citadel." (Post and Courier.) A South Carolina House and Senate concurrent resolution that year honored him as "one of the school's most highly decorated veterans" and "the longest-serving Commandant of Cadets in the history of The Citadel" (SC H. 4222, 2005).

Father of the first female Citadel graduate

Mace's Commandancy overlapped his daughter's cadetship. Nancy Mace entered the Corps in 1996 and in 1999 became the first woman to graduate from The Citadel's Corps of Cadets. In her telling, she chose The Citadel to follow him:

"I could follow in my father's steps, become a cadet like he was, stand where he stood. This was my chance to prove to my father, to the kids in high school who had laughed at me, to myself, that I had what it took."

She also describes the distance beneath the hero worship. In the memoir she writes of childhood: "My father was gone much of the time and paid little attention to me when he was home. I sometimes wondered if he even loved me." Once he became Commandant, she writes, the distance became a rule:

"Once he became Commandant, I ceased to be his daughter while on campus. In his eyes, I was just another cadet, and the one time I walked into his office without an appointment, he threw me out in wrath."

He was equally direct in public. When she enrolled, he told her that if she quit she should "plan on walking home." At her 1999 graduation, where he handed her the diploma as Commandant, he told the Associated Press:

"She's done it all on her own with no help from daddy ... I would make an effort not to associate with her. You need to make it on your own and blend in."

(Associated Press, 1999, via CBS News.)

The theme carried into her adult life. In a February 2026 Politico profile, Mace summed up their relationship in a sentence, "My father has told me no most of my life," and, pressed on why she still sought his and other approval, allowed that she did not feel "good enough" (Politico Magazine). These are her own words and observations; readers can weigh them.

Death and tributes

Emory Mace died at his home on April 14, 2026, at the age of 85, surrounded by his wife, two of his daughters, and his dogs. His obituary closed with the verse he chose, 2 Timothy 4:7: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (The Citadel Alumni Association).

Nancy Mace announced his death in a series of posts on X the night he passed:

"He left this world knowing he was a war hero. Knowing he was loved. Knowing Jesus was waiting ... Rest in peace, Dad. I love you, and I'll see you again."

(Rep. Nancy Mace, X, April 14 to 15, 2026, as reported by Live 5 News and the Post and Courier.)

The Citadel's president, Gen. Glenn Walters, USMC (Ret.), said: "Brig. Gen. Mace was one of The Citadel's most decorated graduates who led our cadets and community through a period of tremendous change ... He was a model Citadel officer and he will be greatly missed" (The Citadel). The South Carolina House of Representatives adopted a memorial resolution, H. 5552, on April 21, 2026 (scstatehouse.gov).

Sources & related coverage

See also