Posted on 04/28/2016 8:03:06 AM PDT by C19fan
Exactly right. The Union should not have invaded and conquered the South. They should have left those people to their independence.
Oh, yes. But one can be both pompous and brave.
Reading the Rick Atkinson trilogy of books on the US Army in WW2, all of the US generals seemed much more like the corporate presidents managing the various divisions of a big conglomerate and responsible to the board than they seemed like inspirational military commanders leading their men. It was all politics and competition and ego, and if you didn't deliver your quota of results that contributed to the overall bottom line, there was always someone waiting in the wings with whom you could be replaced without a second thought by upper management. The one guy I came away from those 1500 pages with a higher opinion of was Eisenhower, who did an amazing job of just holding the whole thing together, especially given how bitchy the Brits frequently were toward him.
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With strong leaders, there are few 'in-betweens', people either love them or hate them. My dad worked with a guy who was in Patton's Third army, including being their when they liberated Mauthausen. He loved the man and once said he proud to have fought under his command.
Yes, at Guilford Courthouse.
From what I know of MacArthur, I simply don’t care for him. I don’t think he was an idiot, but he sure was pompous.
I give him leadership props for two things, however inconsequential, I did like them:
1.) When Halsey was being raked over the coals by MacArthur’s subordinates (in MacArthur’s presence) after the Typhoon Cobra incident, he squashed it forcefully. Whether Halsey did or didn’t screw up (he did) wasn’t the question, it was simply the right thing to suppress that.
2.) When Charles Lindbergh was called on the carpet and had to fly to Australia to explain why he was flying combat missions in P-38s against all regulations, Lindbergh explained what he had been doing, and why. When he told MacArthur that, through is instruction, he had extended the combat radius of their squadrons by 20-30% simply by adjusting fuel mixtures and trim, MacArthur basically told him to go back and do whatever he wanted.
I also give him credit for the postwar management of Japan, but...probably more of that credit should be given to his persona and the Japanese favorable perception of it culturally than his actual actions. Other than that, I dislike the way he treated his peers, the President, his subordinates, and the troops under him. But hey, I am an armchair general, that’s all. Never met him or had to serve under him, so it is only from reading and the accounts of others.
I had exactly the same thought.
In the 1950s, I once played in that cave. I would ride my bike with my friends from Hampton to Yorktown, where we would play on the battlefield all day and then ride back to arrive home before the street lights came on.
I haven’t seen it in 55+ years, but I’ll bet someone has the cave cordoned off and all decked out with period furnishings that weren’t there when my friends and I played there.
Of course, if a ten year old kid were to ride a bicycle from Hampton to Yorktown today without adult supervision, the law would butt in and get involved.
There is now an iron gate at the cave entrance with nothing inside.
“MacArthur had an insufferable ego. Likewise did Patton. An older friend of the family served with Patton, and he absolutely hated the guy.”
My Father fought with Patton in WWII and was in the 3 day march to Bastogne to relieve the 101st in the Battle of the Buldge. My Dad told me that he soon found out that he could sleep and march at the same time. The only good thing that my Dad had to say about Patton was that Patton would not send any of his troops anywhere that he himself would not go. Other than that my Dad hated him as Patton was a real SOB, and that is a quote from my Dad.
Some might think Obama has it made and is living on top of the world. That may be true right now, but his ultimate destination is not where I want to be. I would not trade places with him for anything.
> There is now an iron gate at the cave entrance with nothing inside.
Thanks. I didn’t know that.
I usually don’t like looking for relics of my childhood.
I once tried google street view for the home I grew up in and the palatial southern mansion that was next to it. My home is gone as well as the “Gone With The Wind” class mansion next door. That address currently has several 60 foot piles of gravel and sand.
What a nice way to say rapine and pillage, leaving a path of destruction as wide but more complete than Sherman did with a much larger army.
The American geography was exceptionally daunting. Well-trained troops used to fighting on mostly flat territory in Europe faced a much rougher environment in the heavily forested and mountainous America. Plus, the winters were much harsher, and some places, like the South, could and did cause Brit soldiers to come down with bad diseases.
In short, the British army would have needed a much larger army to subdue the rebels and more time. With all the other stuff they had going on in Europe and other places, they couldn't do it.
My wife and O have been enjoying a series on Netflix about the revolution. “Turn - Washinton’s Spies” is a pretty good historical drama roughly based on the Culper spy ring, and features many characters on both sides based on history. I’m sure much of the story line is invented in the fine details, but many facts we have checked are portrayed fairly accurately. Well worth watching... especially for the sense of honor and duty from soldiers on both sides.
My wife and I, not O!
I now have some of the papers and a letter my Dad had that was signed by General Patton in a separate scrapbook which will go to my son when I pass on. My Dad wouldn’t talk much about the war and what he experienced, just bits and pieces, I think that it was too painful for him.
“I’m sure there are Iraqis and Afghans who would say that American soldiers are taking away their freedom to do what they want to do.”
I’m not sure “freedom to be in the Taliban” counts as a freedom. The Taliban are a foreign/drug money funded bunch of Islamic supremacists. When they were in power they wouldn’t let people play soccer, made them grow beards, etc. etc.. W’eve already supported Afghanistan’s ineffectual anti-Western government for too long. But when we leave things will get worse for the Afghans, not better.
I’m not sure “freedom to be an al queda terrorist” counts as a freedom either. Except for the part where we kicked out Sadaam (who was a jerk who tortured and killed his own people) we spent all of our time in Iraq supporting their government by protecting their people against foreign financed terrorists. Seems like things have taken a turn for the worst after we left there, too.
Yes, the British Army is the state our Army is in today, very bad and degenerate leadership.
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