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Posted on 05/23/2005 9:41:38 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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The great Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe once characterized society’s need for three kinds of people. He called them drummers, warriors and storytellers. Drummers, Achebe said, are those who develop a deep understanding of the past, a realistic appraisal of the present, then drum up enduring causes for the future. Warriors are those who go forth to fight military, political and even social battles for great causes, perhaps many times if necessary, demonstrating thereby the enduring worth of the causes. Storytellers recount what happened -- tell the story of great events.  Relief of Bastogne Of the three, Achebe said storytellers are the most important, for it is their version of what happened that is recorded as history. Notwithstanding that suggestion of how history becomes what it is, we also note that seldom in one person do we find all three of these people -- drummer, warrior, storyteller -- but when we do, that happy juxtaposition more often than not makes the history they tell what it might not be from the hand of a non-drummer, non-warrior. In the entrance hall to the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor, there is a wall designated as the International Commanders Wall. On it are displayed five splendid Jody Harmon prints of famous armor commanders of the 20th century. Certainly all you conscientious armor leaders have gone there, sat on your camp stools before that wall and studied those five portraits hoping to learn something from the lives and deeds of those five great men. I had intended to ask someone to name those five heroes. But I learned from a recent survey of college senior history students in the 10 leading U.S. universities that a large percentage of them had identified the American commander at the battle of Yorktown in the American Revolution as Ulysses S. Grant. Some even believed the Yorktown battle was fought within a few days of the battle of Gettysburg, and that the two battles were what caused President George Washington to send Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders to Cuba to unseat Castro. So perhaps I should avoid embarrassment and just identify the five men on the commander’s wall for you.  Israeli Centurion tanks counterattacking against Syrian forces during the "October War" of 1973. Who are they? One is a German; two were U.S. Army general officers; two were general officers in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), both commanders of the IDF Armored Corps. The German, of course, is Field Marshal Rommel. The U.S. officers are Gen. George Patton (the elder) and Gen. Creighton Abrams (the elder). The Israeli officers are Gen. Israel Tal (Talik) and Gen. Musa Peled. Why are their portraits there? They are there because each of them in his own way was first a drummer, then a warrior -- several times over -- then a storyteller, either firsthand or by the hand of a remarkable biographer. If you take away from your study of the wall nothing more than that metric by which you might judge yourself, your time will have been well spent. May I just illustrate?  We probably know Field Marshal Rommel best from his son Manfred’s version of his father’s war diaries, The Rommel Papers, edited by Liddell Hart. But Rommel himself wrote a book called Infanterie greift an from his experience as an infantry battalion commander in World War I. Translated into English as Infantry Attacks, it literally means to seize the initiative at tactical and operational levels with tactical and operational maneuver. Based on his own storytelling, Rommel became a drummer for seizing the initiative and a warrior who did just that at tactical and operational levels, leading to his striking successes in World War II. You will find his ideas deeply embedded in what we called "AirLand Battle" -- the doctrine that was so successful in the 1991 Gulf War -- for it came from lengthy study of Infanterie greift an. Both Generals Patton and Abrams were warriors whose exploits need no comment. But each was also a drummer and a storyteller in his own unique way. Gen. Patton kept extensive records, from which Martin Blumenson published two volumes of The Patton Papers, and he and others have written excellent biographies. And firsthand from Patton we have Paul Harkins’ edition of Patton’s memoirs, War As I Knew It, and from that book we have Patton’s dictums regarding causes -- tactical and operational, the fighting of battles and campaigns, the winning of wars.  Although he himself disdained record keeping and did not live to write his own memoirs, Gen. Abrams’ story found a remarkable storyteller. His story is recounted in Bob Sorley’s superb books Thunderbolt and A Better War. As I commented in a review of Thunderbolt, had Gen. Abrams commanded in Vietnam sooner, that war would surely have had quite a different and much happier outcome, for he had quite a different cause to drum than had his predecessor.  Musa Peled’s cause was the survival and independence of the state of Israel, and to that end he fought in all of his country’s wars. A graduate of the armor school at Fort Knox, during his active service he would become commandant of the Israeli Defense Force Command and General Staff College and commander of the IDF Armored Corps. His story is writ large in the several histories of his division’s relief of the beleaguered garrison brigades on the Golan Heights in the early hours of the Yom Kippur war. Quite soon after the Syrian attack began, Musa’s division started north. He himself arrived first; the Northern Command commander instructed him to put his battalions, one at a time, into the breaches in the defenses of the 188th Brigade, most of whose battalions had been rendered noneffective. Musa demurred, saying his division should take the initiative, attacking into the left flank of Syrian echelons coming down the road from Damascus towards crossings over the Jordan. Prime Minister Golda Meir was called; Gen. Bar Lev was sent to referee; Bar Lev sided with Musa; with about a fourth of his division still en route, Musa attacked. Within four hours nearly 600 Syrian tanks were destroyed along the front; Musa’s division was across the Green Line, its lead brigade heading for Damascus. The Syrian attack was destroyed. When word came that the Soviets were moving their airborne divisions to marshalling airfields inside the Soviet Union, the Israelis shut down the attack at the outskirts of Damascus, but their remarkable operational maneuver had saved Israel.  Talik, like Musa, is a veteran of all his country’s wars. Drummer for tactical and operational level maneuver, Talik also became drummer for an Israeli designed, engineered and built tank, the Merkava. It is, perhaps without question, the tank in the world inventories of tanks that most closely matches concepts of employment visualized by its user. By many standards, it is the best tank in the world -- designed, engineered and built under the firm hand of Talik. So you see, despite different cultures, nationalities, backgrounds and generations, these five great warriors tell a consistent story. What are its important elements? We tend to see them all as men of action, leaders who led from the front, set the example, seized the initiative. They were all that indeed, but more besides. First, they were profound students of the art of war at the tactical and operational levels -- the history of war. Second, from their studies they formed quite clear concepts of what was needed in order to fight and win, at tactical and operational levels, in the first and succeeding battles of the next, not the last, war. Third, they were all convincing teachers of the lessons of their study and experience. They recognized the need to persuade the many of what the few had learned the hard way. Finally, they all saw the training and education of leaders as key. To them leadership was an art, an art required by the ever-present need to identify and train leaders for the next generation of soldiers and wars.  Both Musa Peled and Gen. Abrams would remark many times that soldiers are a constant; they will do what they have been taught and trained to do and do it as well as their leaders have taught them to do it. When things go wrong, look to the leadership. Remember that as you contemplate these great men from your camp stool perch in front of that wall. Remember also, that in the history of the mechanization of battle, which is the history of war in the 20th century, many, if not most of the drummers and their causes, of the warriors and their exploits, of the storytellers and their remarkable stories, came directly or in some cases roundabout from this old camp where we assemble tonight -- Fort Knox. For Lt. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee was a drummer. While a warrior, he did not live to fight battles which were the target of his causes. But many, if not most, of his subordinates did. Those subordinates, in their World War II operations, refined the causes for which Gen. Chaffee drummed. And while the realized cause was in the end the work of many, Gen. Chaffee was the drummer and would-be warrior. His story, in a modest way, is set forth in Camp Colt to Desert Storm: The History of U.S. Armored Forces. From tanks in World War I to the end of Desert Storm 1991, it is the story of the mechanization of our army. There George Hofmann and I are editors and storytellers, along with Bob Sorley, Bob Sunell, Phil Bolté and Oscar Decker. The drummers, warriors and storytellers for what became AirLand Battle began life right here at Fort Knox. For from the dismal aftermath of the Vietnam War, no more than a handful of determined drummers, warriors and storytellers fashioned the ideas, the organization, the battlefield operating systems, and the training and education systems for soldiers, and especially for leaders, for the magnificent force which would fight and win the Hundred Hour War in 1991. That is your legacy from all of us; those who have been and those who are still drummers, warriors, storytellers. What legacy will you leave to the generations of soldiers, leaders and armies who will fight the battles yet to come?
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That would have sucked, big time.
That explains it. The eastern front is definitely my weakest area.
Love that picture of Guderian. I read "Panzer Leader" back in High School along with "Panzer Battles" by FW von Mellenthin. Never got around to "Achtung Panzer". :-(
Israel got the MBT that fits the situation it is faing in the Mideast. Good design for Urban warfare.
LOL!
Cool tank, who's the funny lookin' guy in front?
He was a believer in the theory that the objective was the destruction of the enemy forces rather than just "taking" ground.
Some doofus Snippy met at the Museum while I was drooling over the King Tiger. ;-)
Hiya Sam
You're tellin' me!
LOL
LOL. Yeah, he looked so innocent at the time. Then he followed me all the way to Oregon. Been hanging around me ever since. What's a girl to do?
I think he's kinda cute.
Dunno, izzit related to What Women Want ?
I read "Panzer Leader" back in High School along with "Panzer Battles" by FW von Mellenthin.
Did you get strange looks?
All the time. I was getting strange looks in Grammar School too. :-)
Who you gonna believe, Snippy or your own eyes? ;-)
If anyone ever figures out what women want, it would change the world as we know it.
LOL. No, I never bought into that glass ceiling thing. Probably because I never lived it. I always got equal pay for equal work.
Women want to rule the world, with a strong man beside them. Real women anyway, imo. Oh, and chocolate with nuts. ;-)
Silly me. I mean we want the strong man to rule, we'll just tell him how. ;-)
77 for you. I'm truly not getting enough sleep.
It's just that you don't hear of many highschool kids reading von Mellenthin.
it doesen't strike me as a real chick magnet, say babe wanna talk about Kursk? :-)
see my post 76 and 77. For now though;
I wanna talk about me
wanna talk about I
wanna talk about Number One
oh my me mine
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want .....
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