Born in Parkin, Arkansas, Louis grew up in this small town 40 miles west of Memphis. His father was manager of a lumber company, then purchased it. Louis worked there, stacking lumber and helping mix concrete blocks as house building material. He also maintained afternoon and morning paper routes, worked on a survey team for a new highway, measured farm fields, and served as cashier on Saturdays for a hardware store. While attending Parkin High School he played football and graduated at age 16 in 1938. A year later he enrolled at Arkansas State College in Jonesboro, beginning classes on September 1, 1939, the day German forces invaded Poland. A physical education major, Louis financed his first year's tuition and expenses with money he had saved. He also worked on the school farm and helped maintain uniforms and the gymnasium, all the while living on his self-imposed allowance of three dollars a week. Louis took the required ROTC for two years, then the two-year advanced course, finishing at the top rank of cadet colonel. After graduating, Louis began active duty on July 5, 1943 and was sent to Camp Robinson in Arkansas to await orders. Meanwhile he had applied for the U.S. Marine Corps. After three days on active duty in the army he was accepted into the marines. Sworn in as a second lieutenant he completed reserve officers' training corps in Quantico, Virginia, then artillery school. On April 2, 1944 he married Lora Francis Walters of Hunter, Arkansas. (They would have two children and one grandchild.) After naval gunfire school in San Diego he was sent to Hawaii where he was assigned to 4^th Marine Division. Louis nearly got into combat when he departed as part of a task force to shell and bomb Japanese positions on Wake Island. "We were about halfway to Wake Island when the first atom bomb was dropped. Of course, that stopped everything," he recalls. He was sent to Tientsin, China, where he became commanding officer of H Battery, 3^rd Battalion, 11^th Marines. In early 1946 he returned to the States and was put on inactive reserve duty. In 1946 he joined the Veterans Administration in Memphis as a corrective therapist, reconditioning patients with spinal cord injuries. He later became chief of the section overseeing therapy for 250 beds of spinal cord patients. Louis was called up in the Korean War in 1952, assigned to 3^rd Marine Air Wing and sent to Miami. Later, he was assigned to a promotions board at U.S. Marine Corps headquarters for six weeks. Meanwhile, the VA transferred him to Chicago to set up a new program. He completed his master's degree in hospital administration from Northwestern University, and worked at Hines VA in Chicago from 1957 to summer of 1963. Meanwhile he was serving in the active reserves, mainly at Glenview Naval Air Station in Glenview, Illinois for 4^th Marine Air Wing where he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In his civilian work he served as assistant director at VA facilities in Huntington, West Virginia; Salem, Virginia; and Washington, D.C. After three years as director of the hospital at Marion, Illinois, he came to Shreveport where he was assistant director, then director of Overton Brooks VA Medical Center. He retired in October 1981.