Marv Truhe served as an officer in the US Navy Judge Advocate Generals Corps during the Vietnam War. While serving as a JAG defense counsel, he defended six of the Black sailors charged with rioting and assaults in the USS Kitty Hawk incident.

Marv was born in January 1945, in a farmhouse on a small farm in South Dakota. World War II was in its final year and his parents had their hands full on the farm, raising crops, livestock, and children. Marv was the fourth child born in four years and times were tough, not only for his family, but for most of the rest of the country.

He graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, with honors. He next attended Northwestern University Law School where he received a Juris Doctorate degree and was a member of the Northwestern Law Review. While at law school, he received an officer’s commission in the US Naval Reserve. Upon graduation from law school in 1970, he attended Naval Justice School and then reported for duty at the US Naval Station Law Center in San Diego. In his final year in uniform, he served as a military judge in special courts-martial trials.

After the Navy, he returned home and served as an Assistant Attorney General, heading up the trial division in the South Dakota Attorney Generals Office. He next practiced law in Rapid City, South Dakota, specializing in corporate, mining, and environmental law. After retirement, he and his wife moved to Colorado to be near their son’s family and two grandchildren.