A few more words in defense of Big Mac

By John M. McFarland

Best Defense guest columnist

Your opinion on MacArthur
as the
worst general in U.S. history absolutely baffles me. It just
reinforces the notion that anyone, anytime, can assert some completely
uninformed, ridiculous opinion on an internet blog and get away with it. Place a Washington Post byline
beneath their name, and, suddenly, they have some type of credibility, or
presumed knowledge or insight about anything.

One actually has to study military history to be able to articulate an
opinion such as that which you have so carelessly issued. Either you have
never studied it, or you were skipping that instruction when it was offered to
you. If MacArthur
had never set foot in WWII or Korea, he still would have been one of the
greatest battlefield leaders in American military history, based solely upon
his performance in WWI. If you want some suggested readings to inform
yourself about MacArthur's military career, and about more basic military
affairs or matters generally, I will be happy to provide them. It's
never too late to
learn.

One can read everything
about MacArthur 5 times over, but fail to ever gain the slightest insight
into him if (i) one reads everything about MacArthur with a view and
goal of extracting only what fits into the preconceived notion of MacArthur to
which one is already wed, and/or (ii) one is more concerned with articulating
opinions or judgments that will be more readily accepted by those of one's
particular social/political persuasion or perspective, rather than viewing a
historical figure fully in the round. It's not necessarily what you
read, but how you read it.

Now you want to strip him of his
WWI accomplishments. I am familiar with the
book to which you refer. That author looked at the historical record
(as he perceived it) and pronounced most proudly that he had discovered that
MacArthur had not actually set foot on the objective in the battle campaign
for which he received a DSC (one of 4, I believe, that
MacArthur received from a headquarters that was hostile to him). Because of this author's "extensive" knowledge of all things
military, he concluded from this sole "fact" that MacArthur did
not deserve his decoration, had not performed with valor worthy of
the citation, and was a charlatan and a fraud. This author
supposedly discerned 80+ years after the fact what no one in the Rainbow
Division, Chaumont, or the AEF discerned during the attack. The
sheer tonnage of what that author obviously does not know about military operations on
a tactical level literally took my breath away. As William Manchester
remarked in American
Caesar, there is almost nothing
derogatory that can be said about MacArthur these days that will not be
believed immediately at face value by those untrained or unwilling to examine
the premises of the statement.

All of the great captains of history have manifested flaws roughly commensurate with their
brilliance. MacArthur is no different than, for example, Napoleon or
Hannibal in this regard. The best single volume analysis of
MacArthur, I believe, is Geoffrey Perret's Old
Soldiers Never Die -- The Life of Douglas MacArthur. Perret
is critical and judgmental of MacArthur when necessary and appropriate, but
succeeds as a military historian in viewing MacArthur in the round, which you,
in this regard, clearly do not. Perret judged MacArthur the second
greatest soldier in American history, after U.S. Grant. Perret expressly
moves him to second place because of MacArthur's dabbling in politics late in
his career, and his antagonism with President Truman. Unlike
you, however, Perret does not allow himself to be blinded by these
episodes in analyzing MacArthur's place among the great captains of
history, and certainly American military history. While I disagree with
that particular conclusion of Perret, I respect his process because he has
viewed and analyzed the complete sum of MacArthur's life in the whole, not little snippets of his life that are cherry-picked by authors such as you
to support the preconceived end that they have already identified for
their analysis.

Where have you possibly gone or
whom have you possibly talked to in order to draw the conclusion that
the U.S. Army has "extirpated" the memory of Douglas
MacArthur?

John M. McFarland,
an attorney and graduate of West Point, served in the 82d Airborne Division and
5th Special Forces Group before attending law school on active duty
and transferring to the Judge Advocate General's Corps, where he continued
his service before leaving the Army to begin private practice.