On the night of 17 April 1973, fourteen small Dassault Falcon 20 jets took off from Memphis carrying 186 packages to 25 American cities. It was the first night of Federal Express. The man behind it, Frederick W. Smith, had learned to lead not in business school but as a Marine officer in Vietnam. Within months his company was almost out of money, and he made a bet that has become one of the most famous stories in American business.

Kilo Company, May 1968

Smith graduated from Yale in 1966 and joined the Marine Corps. In Vietnam he first led a platoon and then, because of a shortage of officers, commanded Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, as a first lieutenant. On 27 May 1968, in Quang Nam Province, his company was in heavy fighting. According to the account published by Arlington National Cemetery, he helped wounded Marines to safety, directed fire against an enemy advance and led an attack that drove the enemy from the field. He was awarded the Silver Star for “courage, aggressive leadership and unfaltering devotion to duty at great personal risk”. He was 23.

Back in the Air

Smith had learned to fly as a young man, and on his second tour he returned to Vietnam as a forward air controller in the OV-10A Bronco, the twin-boom observation aircraft the Marines used to find targets and direct air strikes for troops on the ground. According to his son, speaking at his funeral, he was shot down, evaded capture and was rescued. He left the Marine Corps in 1969 as a captain, having been wounded twice.

He always said the Marines taught him more about running a company than Yale did. College, he explained, taught him how companies work; the Marine Corps taught him how people work.

Fourteen Falcons

Smith founded Federal Express in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1971 and moved it to Memphis, which had a central location and an airport that rarely closed for weather. The idea was a hub-and-spoke overnight network: every package flew to Memphis, was sorted overnight and flew out again. For aircraft he chose the Dassault Falcon 20, a French business jet modified with a large cargo door, a strengthened floor and plugged windows. The first, N8FE, was named “Wendy” after his daughter, starting a FedEx tradition of naming aircraft after employees’ children. It carried the company’s first air express package and is now displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. By the end of 1974, at least 33 Falcons were flying for the company.

The Las Vegas Bet

The first night was modest, and the early months were brutal. Rising fuel costs pushed the company deep into debt, and investors were reluctant to put in more. When General Dynamics, whose backing Smith had been pursuing, turned him down, the company was close to running out of cash. On the way home, Smith detoured to Las Vegas and took the company’s last few thousand dollars to a blackjack table. He came back with a little over five times as much and wired it to the company.

The win has become legend, but Smith himself was careful not to overstate it. He later said the money was not decisive, but that it was an omen that things would get better. What saved Federal Express was the new funding he raised soon afterwards. Revenue grew quickly, air cargo deregulation in 1977 let the company buy larger aircraft, starting with seven Boeing 727s, and in 1978 Federal Express listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Writing in Forbes in 2017, Smith concluded that sometimes it pays to be a little crazy early in your career.

Taking Care of the Troops

Smith ran FedEx for more than five decades and never lost his connection to the Marine Corps. He co-chaired the campaign for the National Museum of the Marine Corps and, with Senator Bob Dole, the national World War II Memorial project. In 2022 he made a major gift to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to endow scholarships for the children of Navy service members studying science and engineering. Military Times named him its Veteran of the Year in 2024. He died in Memphis on 21 June 2025, aged 80, and on 2 October 2025 he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, with two Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys flying overhead.

The company he started with a handful of business jets has a long aviation history of its own, including the 1994 attack on one of its crews, which we tell in FedEx Flight 705.

What the Popular Version Gets Right

The well-known version of the story is largely accurate: the first night with 14 jets and 186 packages, the General Dynamics refusal, the trip to Las Vegas, the Silver Star, the second tour flying forward air control, the scholarship gift and the burial at Arlington. A few details need care. The detailed dialogue often quoted from the Las Vegas episode comes from later retellings rather than from Smith’s own public account; his own verdict was that the win mattered more as an omen than as money. His remark about taking care of the troops is usually paraphrased; the wording above is his, as published by Military Times. And his 2022 scholarship gift endowed awards for the children of Navy service members, not for Marines’ children in general.

Sources: Arlington National Cemetery, “From Vietnam Jungles to Keeping the World on Time: Honoring Marine Corps Capt. Frederick W. Smith” (October 2025); Military Times (9 April 2024 and 23 June 2025); FedEx corporate history; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Dassault Falcon 20 object record (A19830302000); Fox Business, citing Forbes and Entrepreneur; Action News 5, Memphis (2 October 2025).