Well, I am more forgiving of the blunders of leaders in war, because...humans are fallible. People make mistakes.
And many of our seagoing leaders in WWII were old men. Not by today’s standards, of course, but back then, they were considered old men. Halsey was 60 years old when the war was in the balance in 1942. Now that is young, but back then...that was very old.
We found out early on in WWII that many of our commanders who were older could not bear up under the rigors and stress of command, and there was a concerted push to get younger, more vigorous men into positions of command.
Back to the original point...I cut our commanders some slack even when needless lives are lost, or blunders are made, because...that is war. Granted, if I am one of the needless lives lost or my relatives are, I feel differently.
I guess it is a matter of scale.
I forget who said it, he said something like “I forgave Halsey the first typhoon...it was the second one I held against him.” I kind of agree with that. Admiral McCain fell on his sword for that to protect Halsey.
Well said!