I wouldn’t think of dispelling it, only adding to it. Those subordinate generals did some incredibly brutal, and effective stuff, and be assured the worst tale or two you have read is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were.
But that was their job. Pershing, on the other hand, played the “gentle, grandfatherly role” of a commander perfectly—and this is characteristic of real ass-kickers of commanders. At first glance you can imagine them on an easy chair at home, dawdling their grandchildren on their knee.
Even their own soldiers often think of their commanders as real softies, the truth of the matter known only to the senior officers of their command. From the soldier’s point of view, the real terror is the commander’s executive officer, who plays the “bad cop”, usually with the Command Sergeant Major in tow, as his “henchman”.
It should also be noted that at the lower levels of command in the Philippines, a lot of the junior officers were real swashbuckler types, who pulled off some of the most amazing stunts to disrupt enemy operations.
One of my favorites were three guys who dressed up as Moros, one with his leg in a splint hobbling alone with the other two holding him up. Then they sat in the front row of a rally led by an effective Moro commander to perhaps several hundred of his followers.
The splint was a shotgun. And in the ensuing hubbub, the three managed to make good their escape. By the time their own command found out what they had done, they had returned home, cleaned up and changed back into uniform, gone to the officer’s club and were drunk.
Good stuff! Thank you!