Military career
First Lieutenant Bester was sent to the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Officer Basic Course at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was then stationed at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Washington. By 1976, Captain Bester was sent to Okinawa to serve as a clinical staff nurse. In 1977, he returned to Texas to attend the didactic component of the anesthesiology course at Beaumont Army Medical Center and then clinical anesthesia training at Madigan Army Medical Center.
In 1979, he was assigned to at Reynolds Army Hospital Fort Sill, Oklahoma where he would be assigned to temporary duty to the Cuban Refugee Operation at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.
He volunteered in 1981 to change his specialty to field nursing and became chief nurse of the 10th Combat Support Hospital at Fort Meade, Maryland. In 1983, the Army sent him to Catholic University of America where he earned a master’s degree in medical-surgical nursing. Now Major Bester became a nurse instructor and AMEDD Regimental Adjutant at Fort Sam Houston in 1985. He was sent on recruiting duty from 1988-1900.
In 1990, Lieutenant Colonel Bester was assigned to Alexandria, VA, to serve as a Personnel Management Officer. In 1992, he returned to hospital work as chief of the department of nursing at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana and then deputy commander for nursing at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1993, he was sent to USA MEDDAC in Wurzburg Germany as deputy commander for nursing at the 67th Combat Support Hospital. In 1994, Colonel Bester deployed to Taszar, Hungary in support of Operation Joint Endeavor with the 67th CSH.
Bester attended the Army War College in 1997 and then was the commander of the Moncrief Army Community Hospital at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. In 2000, he was promoted to brigadier general and became the 21st chief of the Army Nurse Corps. While chief of the ANC, Bester ensured that the army had a supply of nurses needed for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He also advocated for U.S. Army civilian contract nurses to better benefits. And he finalized plans for US. Army Reserve nurses to be required to have a bachelor's degree.
In 2002, he was made the assistant surgeon general for Force Projection and the commanding general, United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine. He would retire from the army in 2004.
