Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney
Rooney in June 2008
Born	Andrew Aitken Rooney (1919-01-14)January 14, 1919 Albany, New York, U.S.
Died	November 4, 2011(2011-11-04) (aged 92) New York City, New York, U.S.
Education	The Albany Academy
Alma mater	Colgate University
Period	1949–2011
Notable works	The weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" on 60 Minutes
Notable awards	Emmy 2003 Lifetime Achievement 1980 "Tanks" 1980 "Grain" 1978 "Who Owns What in America" 1968 "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed"
Years active	1942-2011
Spouse	Marguerite Rooney (m. 1942–2004) (her death)
Children	Brian, Emily, Martha, Ellen

Andrew Aitken "Andy" Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes from 1978 to 2011. His final regular appearance on 60 Minutes aired on October 2, 2011. He died one month later, on November 4, 2011, at age 92.

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born in Albany, New York, the son of Walter Scott Rooney (1888–1959) and Ellinor (Reynolds) Rooney (1886–1980). He attended The Albany Academy, and later attended Colgate University in Hamilton in Central New York, where he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity, before he was drafted into the United States Army in August 1941.

Rooney began his career in newspapers while in the Army when, in 1942, he began writing for Stars and Stripes in London during World War II.

In February 1943, flying with the Eighth Air Force, he was one of six correspondents who flew on the second American bombing raid over Germany. He was the first journalist to reach the Ludendorff Bridge after the 9th Armored Division captured it on March 7, 1945. He was 32 kilometers (20 mi) to the west when he heard the bridge had been captured. Forty years after the event, he wrote about his luck. "It was a reporter's dream. One of the great stories of the war had fallen into my lap." When news of the bridge capture reached American newspapers, it was front page news. Rooney rated the capture of the bridge as one of the top five events of the entire European war, alongside D-Day.

Later, he was one of the first American journalists to visit the Nazi concentration camps near the end of World War II, and one of the first to write about them. During a segment on Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, Rooney stated that he had been opposed to World War II because he was a pacifist. He recounted that what he saw in those concentration camps made him ashamed that he had opposed the war and permanently changed his opinions about whether "just wars" exist.