Harold G. Overstreet
12th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps
Harold G. Overstreet (born December 1944) is a retired United States Marine who served as the 12th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps from 1991 to 1995.
Military career
Overstreet was born in December 1944 in Houston, Texas. He entered the United States Marine Corps in June 1966 and completed recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, followed by Basic Infantry Training School at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.
Upon completion of training, Overstreet reported to staging battalion at Camp Pendleton, for further assignment to the 1st Military Police Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, Republic of Vietnam. Returning to the states, he was reassigned to the infantry training regiment at Camp Pendleton. He subsequently completed successful tours on the inspector-instructor staff, Wichita, Kansas; recruiting duty in Des Moines, Iowa, and Detroit, Michigan; and finally returned to MCRD San Diego in various drill instructor roles: junior drill instructor, senior drill instructor, series gunnery sergeant, and chief instructor. Reassigned to the Drill Instructor School, he was an instructor, drill master, and chief instructor.
After completing First Sergeant School, Overstreet was assigned to Special Projects at Drill Instructor School, where he undertook the task of completely transferring the Drill Manual onto video tape for a more optimal use during instructional periods. His promotion to first sergeant in February 1979 led to his second assignment on Okinawa as the first sergeant for Headquarters and Service Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion. Upon his return from overseas, he was the first sergeant of both Companies B and C, 1st Battalion 4th Marines at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms.
The public source identifies “Harold G. Overstreet” as 12th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Harold, Overstreet and 12th.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5660757. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1991, 1995 and 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harold G. Overstreet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.