Posted on 08/04/2019 2:20:07 PM PDT by fugazi
I forgot about Andy Jackson. He was tough as hickory and hated his enemies which helps in war.
All of them.
And of course thne there's the fact that he was a British soldier.
You don't know what you are talking about.
GI Jane
OMG. God bless that man.
I think more and more about all those men who went into battle in shirtsleeves and am floored. Just floored. It’s the dangdest thing to imagine myself in a landing craft in WWII. That took guts, even if you were ordered there.
Seems to me there are a whole raft of people lying at rest in military cemeteries who would overflow the OP’s title. I have a few from my family.
I’d like to throw in Col. Hal Moore for one, and a number of people who are still alive from Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom. There’s one or two that rank near and dear to my heart, but they know who they are/were.
And was the most highly decorated US soldier in WWI
IIRC you wrote several “episodes” of your time in Vietnam and in the hospital ward? If so, this is another great story. Like my old neighbor from years, ago after reading me the Sunday’s comic strip “Prince Valiant” would always say (I mean, EVERY single time) - “Boy, he sure do write purty.”
IMHO, it's a four-way tie between Smedley Butler, Chesty Puller, Audie Murphy, and Alvin York...
Of course I'm totally biased towards the first two...
Montgomery is very under-rated. Patton thought he was a prima donna but also thought he was the best British general.
Actually both Patton and Montgomery had the same idea about Arnhem. It was simply very bad luck and a few bad choices.
Montgomery was a young lieutenant in WWI. He was shot through the body by a German sniper. It took him a year to recover and he was out of the war but he went back and rejoined his men.
They’re great but Clarke gave us the midwest (Northwest Territory). No American soldier has ever delivered anything similar with so few resources under such adverse conditions.
Tossup between Audie Murphy and Chesty Puller.
MacArthur would be second on my list after Washington. He had is flaws but he was brilliant and brave. He was the most decorated American in WW1 even thou Perish did not like him (jealous over a woman). A general in WW1, theater commander in WW2 and supreme commander in Korea. No other American general had such longevity. But he made one terrible mistake and one very bad mistake. The terrible mistake was to not immediately hit the Japanese after Perl Harbor. The bad mistake was to lead the effort against the bonus marchers. Other than those two mistakes he had the most illustrious military career of any American Commander.
Agree ! GW is very very under rated!
In the case of war , winning is the thing. Nothing else much matters.
I may be a little biased since he is my many-times-great-grandfather, but I think U.S. Grant deserves more credit than your average history buff gives him credit for. I think it would be fascinating to put him in charge of a World War II campaign, maybe switch him with a Gen. Mark Clark in Italy and see how each general would have fared in the other’s war. Yes, Grant’s story isn’t as sexy as a cavalier southern General and he had the numbers behind him, and what red-blooded American doesn’t love an underdog?
Myself the last two but either way to be in a list with any of them is enough.
Probably one who was KIA who we have never heard of.
Another great American General who gets very little credit is Winfield Scott! His Mexico campaign was viewed by Wellington as one of the greatest military accomplishments of the age.
All Of Them!!!!
I read a short outtake from Montgomery’s book.
One thing struck me. He said the most under rated and most useful soldiers were the “sappers” as he called them. He said there were never enough of them.
We call them combat engineers.
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