Warner was born in Woonsocket, South Dakota. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944, then was transferred to the Army the following year upon receiving an alternate appointment from South Dakota to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Graduating in 1950, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Infantry.^[2] Almost immediately after graduation, he was ordered to Korea, where he served in combat as an Infantry platoon leader in L-Company of the 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division.

In 1953, Warner was reassigned to Europe where he served as a company commander and battalion staff officer in Trieste, Italy, Austria, and West Germany. Following attendance at the U.S. Marine Corps Advanced Course in Quantico, Virginia, Warner served a tour of duty at West Point as an instructor in the Department of Psychology and Leadership, after earning a Master of Arts Degree in Psychology from Vanderbilt University.

In 1963, Warner was reassigned as a Province Senior Advisor in South Vietnam. After returning from Vietnam in 1965, he served in a variety of positions in Washington, D.C., to include duty as the Military Assistant to the Special Assistant to the President for Vietnam Affairs. After earning a Masters of Science in International Relations from George Washington University, in 1969 Warner assumed command of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Returning to the Pentagon in 1970, Warner served as the Executive Officer and Senior Aide to the Army Chief of Staff. In 1972 Warner was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, first as the Chief of Staff and then as the Assistant Division Commander for Operations.

After a tour of duty as the United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, General Warner assumed command of the 9th Infantry Division in 1975. Later in 1977, Warner assumed command of the XVIII Airborne Corps.

In 1979 Warner assumed his duties as the Commander in Chief, Readiness Command (REDCOM), headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. His tenure as REDCOM commander coincided with the interservice debate over which unified command should have jurisdiction over the Middle East and the associated Rapid Deployment Force.

In 1980, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) was created under the command of Marine Lieutenant General Paul X. Kelley and based at MacDill Air Force Base. During planning and training exercises in the United States, the RDJTF reported to REDCOM, which was responsible for preparing United States-based Army and Air Force units for overseas deployment, but during operations the force was controlled by whichever headquarters had oversight over the territory in which it was deployed. Since the RDJTF was expected to operate mainly in the Middle East, permanent operational control over the force implied geographical responsibility for Southwest Asia. At the time, no unified command was specifically responsible for that increasingly critical region, which was divided between United States European Command and United States Pacific Command.

Warner opposed proposals to assign the RDJTF to either European or Pacific Command, or to allow the RDJTF to oversee the Middle East as an autonomous command. Instead he asked that the land responsibility for Southwest Asia be returned to Readiness Command, which had overseen the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa in its previous incarnation as United States Strike Command. Meanwhile, he insisted that as long as the RDJTF was headquartered in the United States, REDCOM was its governing unified command and the RDJTF should not continue to bypass the REDCOM commander by maintaining an independent office in Washington, D.C.

The interservice controversy over which unified command should control the RDJTF created friction between the REDCOM and RDJTF headquarters staffs and eventually spilled into the press, which cast the debate as a personal feud between Warner and Kelley. "Unfortunately, we were both caught up in the service argument as to whether it should be a premier Army or Marine force," Warner said.

On April 25, 1981, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger announced that the RDJTF would become a separate command with responsibility for Southwest Asia. Rebuffed in his attempt to renew the mandate of his command, Warner requested retirement, citing a lack of support from the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the debate. In parting, he observed that if the RDJTF were to be made an independent unified command, then REDCOM would be redundant and should be disestablished.^[2] The RDJTF became United States Central Command in 1983 and REDCOM was replaced by United States Special Operations Command in 1987.

Warner retired from the Army on July 31, 1981. Subsequently, Warner was Vice President of Applied Technology, Vertex Systems, Incorporated, and later established V.F. Warner and Associates, a Washington-based consulting firm. He resided in McLean, Virginia.

Warner's awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star with V Device (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medals with V Device, Army Commendation Medal with V Device (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Combat Infantryman Badge (2nd Award), and Master Parachutist Badge. His military education includes the Command and General Staff College in 1963; Armed Forces Staff College in 1965; and the National War College in 1969, at which time he also received a Master of Science degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Warner married Belva Janice Forbes in 1950, and had two daughters and two sons, one a retired brigadier general and the other a retired colonel. On August 18, 2005, Warner's granddaughter, First Lieutenant Laura Margaret Walker, was killed in action in Delak, Afghanistan, making her the first female West Point graduate to die in combat. Warner later come out to publicly criticize the Iraq War, and proposed pre-emptive peace as an alternative to pre-emptive war for the future. Volney Warner died on November 13, 2019, at the age of 93.^[3]

While serving as Chief of Staff to the 82nd Airborne Division, Warner was seconded to the White House by General Alexander Haig, then Chief of Staff to President Nixon. Warner was to serve as the senior federal representative to address the standoff at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Warner successfully resolved the issue without bloodshed. Attorney Kenneth Tilsen, representing the American Indian Movement, commented that "Warner was the only one who really knew what he was doing...".

Colonel Warner, in civilian clothes, arrived in the area on March 3 with orders to determine whether U.S. troops should be committed — a serious decision, since an executive order from the President would be required. Joseph Trimbach, Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the regional FBI office in Minneapolis, who met him at Ellsworth Air Force Base, near Rapid City, assured him that this was a case for the U.S. Army: The FBI requested that two thousand soldiers seize the reservation and restore order, after which the FBI would move in and make arrests. Colonel Warner recommended that SAC Trimbach's request be refused, and also that the FBI change its standing orders from shoot–to–kill to shoot–to–wound, in light of the fact that the Indians were not trying to harm anyone. The symbolic presence of the U.S. Army, in the person of Colonel Warner, is credited with blocking the all–out attack that the FBI and its allies had in mind.^[4]

Warner is credited with coining the phrase "boots on the ground", to mean the actual forces engaged in a conflict.^[5] The first use of the phrase is identified as a quote in the Christian Science Monitor (April 11, 1980) in reference to the Iran hostage crisis: "US options grow more difficults [sic] as the chance of a Soviet response increases. However, many American strategists now argue that even light, token US land forces -- 'getting US combat boots on the ground' as General Warner puts it -- would signal to an enemy that the US is physically guarding the area and can only be dislodged at the risk of war."^[6]

  This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Army

• Afghanistan: Context and What's Next, by Volney F. Warner, Joint Force Quarterly, issue 56, 1st quarter 2010, NDU Press Archived 2013-11-07 at the Wayback Machine
• A Veteran General Hears Echoes from Vietnam in Iraq, by Nancy A. Youssef, August, 6, 2007, McClatchy DC
• Opening Statement before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations Archived 2007-12-11 at the Wayback Machine
• Getting Past Iraq, by Volney F. Warner and as presented by him to the National War College Alumni on 25 October 2007 Archived 26 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• Korean War Educator, Veterans' Memoirs, Volney Frank Warner
• Company L's Four Days: from the Journal of Company L, 21st Infantry, by Lindsey P. Henderson, Jr., September 1951 Combat Forces Journal Archived 2007-11-29 at the Wayback Machine
• The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative ..., Part 4, by William Conrad Gibbons, pp. 202-205
• Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), Volume I, Chapter 2 "US Organization and Method of Operations", Volney F. Warner, principal author on study Archived 2007-09-13 at the Wayback Machine
• Reflections on Vietnam
• University of Tulsa McFarlin Library's inventory of the Kent Frizzell Wounded Knee papers housed in their special collections department Archived 2010-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
• Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials, by John William Sayer, pp. 146, 228, 278, 298, 310
• Laura Margaret Walker Eulogy Site
• Definition and Citation, Boots on the Ground, Double-Tongued Dictionary
• Boots on the Ground, The New York Times Magazine, On Language: Let's Do This, by William Safire, 7 November 2008
• Women in the Line of Fire: What You Should Know About Women in the Military, by Erin Solaro; foreword by Volney F. Warner, USA (Ret.), pp. v-vi
• 2003 Firepower "National Chapter" Award Archived 2007-06-26 at the Wayback Machine
• "Reforming Military Command Arrangements: The Case of the Rapid Deployment Joint Taske Force", by Henrik Bliddal; see pp. 25-47