AUGUSTA – While he was growing up in Lewiston in the 1950s, John “Bill” Libby spent summers at his family’s camp on Sabattus Lake in Wales.

On Friday nights, while his father and his uncles and their friends played cards, they often spoke about their experiences as soldiers in World War II. His father, John C. Libby, had served in the Pacific, in a radio communications outfit that was involved in the Battle of Okinawa.

But it wasn’t the war stories that caught his attention, Libby said. Rather, he was drawn to the camaraderie that military service fosters.

Today, Libby is Maine’s top soldier, with the rank of major general. He is the leader of the Maine National Guard and its 3,400 troops. He also oversees all state issues that relate to military matters, veterans and civil emergency preparedness.

Libby, 66, a veteran of Vietnam, says his long military career is due to those stories he heard at that camp on Sabattus Lake.

“I tell World War II veterans that their generation was my call to serve,” Libby said.

Libby is the only member of Gov. Paul LePage’s Cabinet who also served under Gov. John Baldacci.

He certainly has a warrior’s credentials: In Vietnam, he was a field artillery battery commander for the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, one of the Army’s most famous and decorated combat divisions.

But Libby also has the highly tuned social skills of a successful politician.

He is a popular figure in the State House, where he charms lawmakers with servings of oatmeal and butterscotch cookies (which he bakes himself using his mother’s recipe).

He has been committed to supporting families of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. While he has a commanding presence, observers said, family members find him easy to talk to.

At the Maine National Guard Youth Camp in Gilead, which provides a week of fun for the children of guard members, an annual tradition has developed for when Libby arrives.

It’s called “pig pile on the general,” said Doug Farnham, operations group commander of the 101st Air Refueling Wing of the Maine Air National Guard in Bangor.

On Friday, at “bring your kid to work day” at the Air National Guard headquarters at Camp Keyes in Augusta, 16 children piled on top of Libby.

It could have been worse, Libby said with a laugh. “Some of the bigger, older ones decided to cut me some slack.”

Farnham said Libby is one of the most approachable generals he has ever seen.

“That is one of the reasons he resonates with families so well,” he said.

Farnham’s wife, Sen. Nichi Farnham, R-Bangor, who co-chairs the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, said Libby’s communication skills have allowed to him build trust with lawmakers and help them understand the needs of the Maine National Guard.

“He can translate them into a language we can understand, and with the professionalism and passion for what he does and what they do,” she said.

Libby’s commitment and his institutional knowledge have earned him enormous credibility on the issues with lawmakers in both political parties, said Rep. Emily Cain, D-Orono, the House minority leader.

“His leadership style transcends politics,” she said.

Baldacci, a Democrat, appointed Libby to his Cabinet in 2004. Libby planned to retire when LePage took office, but changed his mind in December, after LePage asked him to stay.

Libby and his wife, Cindy, now residents of Sidney, lived in Waterville for 25 years. He said he crossed paths several times with LePage when LePage was the city’s mayor.

Libby said those encounters came from his volunteer work in the city’s sports community, including serving as a hockey coach, a referee and president of the Waterville Area Youth Hockey Association and the Waterville High School Hockey Boosters.

Libby said he is not registered in either political party because his views straddle both. He said he was pleased that LePage decided to appoint him because he loves his job.

A great staff surrounds him, he said, and he is inspired by the dedication of the men and women who volunteer for the National Guard to serve the state and the nation.

“Gosh, if that doesn’t get my blood flowing in the morning and make me want to go to work, maybe I ought to retire,” he said.

Libby excels at public speaking. He may have gotten his communications skills from his father, who was a sportscaster for WCOU in Lewiston. In the 1950s and early 1960s, his father was a substitute play-by-play announcer for Fred Cusick, the legendary broadcaster for the Boston Bruins. Libby said he often traveled with his father when he went on the road with the Bruins.

Libby inherited his father’s passion for hockey. He was a defenseman for Lewiston High School’s hockey team.

At the University of Maine, where he was enrolled in a Reserve Officers Training Corps program, he played on the varsity football team only because the university didn’t have a hockey team back then.

He played hockey with his friends on a makeshift rink in a parking lot, said his wife, whom he met while they both were working as dishwashers in the university’s cafeteria.

Libby graduated in 1966, and the couple married the next year.

They raised three boys, including Jeff Libby, who played hockey for two years for the New York Islanders before suffering a career-ending injury. He now coaches the Portland Junior Pirates in Saco.

Their other two sons, Derek (named after Bruins star Derek Sanderson) and Brad (named after Bruins defenseman Brad Park), live in Massachusetts.

After Vietnam, Libby was assigned to the University of Massachusetts ROTC Detachment as an instructor and later served in Germany for three years.

Libby decided to retire from the Army in 1975 because he wanted to raise a family in Maine. He landed a job as dean of students at Fryeburg Academy.

To make ends meet, he joined the Maine Army National Guard and in 1978 took a full-time position with the National Guard in Waterville.

He retired from the National Guard in 1995 to accept a job as director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency.

A year later, he rejoined the National Guard as a part-time soldier responsible for training and operations.

That was the job he had when Baldacci appointed him to his current post in 2004.

During his tenure, Maine’s National Guard has mobilized and deployed more than 4,000 men and women in support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unlike the soldiers of the Vietnam era or World War II, Libby said, soldiers in the National Guard are part-time volunteers who hold regular jobs.

When they are dispatched overseas, he said, it creates a lot of stress on their families and their employers, who must by law keep their jobs for them.

He said the country should be grateful for the sacrifices they are making. “The nation is asking a lot from them.”

MaineToday Media State House Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 699-6261 or at:

tbell@mainetoday.com