November 22, 2024

AsMA staff were saddened to hear of the death of COL (Ret.) Warner D. “Rocky” Farr, M.D., MPH, MSS, an AsMA Fellow, Aerospace Pathologist, and legendary figure in Army Special Forces and Special Operations Medicine.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 after graduating Northeast Louisiana University. He trained as a paratrooper at Fort Benning, GA, and became a Green Beret. He then served in the Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group, a partnership between the CIA and the Special Forces. There he served as a combat medic and became a Special Forces NCO and Officer.
   When he returned to the United States in 1970, Dr. Farr continued to serve as a Green Beret medic until 1975, when he became an Exchange NCO to the German Army Long Range Recon Company 100. He became a Special Forces /Operations Medical Instructor in 1978, where he served until 2006. He was accepted into the Uniformed Services University in 1979, where he earned his M.D. in 1983, when he was promoted to second lieutenant. From 1983 until 2013, he was Medical Officer-Physician, Clinical Department Chief, Chief of Medical Staff. He also served as Reserve Special Forces Advisor, Infantry Team, at Ft. Bliss and Ft. Sam Houston, TX, from 1979–1990. He was promoted in 1987 to major and that year took a position as an Aerospace, Anatomic, and Clinical Pathologist/Master Flight Surgeon for the Federal Government, which he held until 2013. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1993, and colonel in 1999. From 1999-2009, he was Medical Director, Special Operations, at Ft. Bragg and MacDill AFB. In 2002, he became an Associate Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where he taught flight physiology and vision until 2006.
   From 2009-2013, Dr. Farr served as Command Surgeon-Colonel at MacDill AFB and in Doha, Qatar. He was board certified in aerospace medicine and anatomic and clinical pathology. His biggest accomplishment was creating a medical kit, including a tourniquet, hemostatic dressing, antibiotics and pain pills and a needle for sucking chest wounds, for troops. He retired from the military in 2013 after 46 years in uniform and took a position as an Associate Clinical Professor of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and Internal Medicine: Aerospace Medicine at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine-Bradenton, FL, campus, a position he held until his death.