Doin' the ACE James Hardwicke Oglethorpe was an ex-Special Forces officer, a loner who had seen bad things from Iraq to Africa and the Balkans. Got out and earned an MBA, in real estate no less, so he could sell vacation homes in the beautiful South Carolina Lowcountry. The best place would be in the ACE Basin, 350,000 acres of protected land filled with marshes, beaches, forest and wildlife. You could make a killing there. Little did he know.