Arthur Marsh was the son of a World War I Army chaplain who was killed in action. ArthurJr. graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1937. He then attended the Virginia Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. After graduating in 1940 he was ordained an Episcopalian priest and vicar of Saint Alban’s Episcopal Mission in Albany, New York. He was called to active duty in the U.S. Army on January 15, 1942, and was commissioned as a chaplain, serving with the 84th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion of the 4th Armored Division, and then in December transferred to the artillery command of that division. He was sent to a replacement depot in New Hebrides in the Southwest Pacific Theater of Operations in December 1943, and joined the 198th Coast Artillery (AA) Regiment at Guadalcanal, serving in campaigns in the Northern Solomons and Finschafen, New Guinea. After a year of duty, he was assigned to the 123d Infantry Regiment, 33d Infantry Division, serving in the Philippine Islands in 1944 and 1945. After the war he was sent to Japan as part of the Occupation Army. He retired from military service as a U.S. Army colonel.