Great speech, thanks for the ping risk.
The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind.
The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General Douglas MacArthur - June 14th, 2003
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Dugout Doug MacArthur lies ashakin' on the Rock Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan And his troops go starving on.
Dugout Doug, come out from hiding Dugout Doug, come out from hiding Send to Franklin the glad tidings That his troops go starving on! (Manchester, pp. 237-38)
And President Truman "privately called the General 'a common coward' for leaving Corregidor in 1942" (Manchester, p. 672).
But nothing said about Douglas MacArthur could possibly be further from the truth. During the First World War he won the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Service Cross, and Seven Silver Stars. Perret reports the following meeting of Brigadier General MacArthur and Colonel George S. Patton, Jr. in France on 12 September 1918: "'I walked right along the line of one brigade,' Patton wrote to his wife some hours later: 'They were all in shell holes except the general, Douglas MacArthur, who was standing on a little hill. . . . I joined him and the creeping barrage came along toward us. . . . I think each one wanted to leave but each hated to say so, so we let it come over us.' When a shell exploded nearby, throwing dirt on them, Patton remained erect but flinched. 'Don't worry, Colonel,' said MacArthur wryly. 'You never hear the one that gets you.' MacArthur's combat performance this day brought him his fifth Silver Star and Patton's enduring respect. He told his family MacArthur was 'the bravest man I ever met'" (p. 102).
As far as "Dugout Doug" is concerned, it is true that the General visited his troops on Bataan only once during his three-and-one-half months on Corregidor. But the reason is clearly that when he did so that one time, he told them help was on the way, because he had been told by Washington and believed that help was on the way. He could not bear to tell them later that it wasn't true. And he left Corregidor (with his wife and son) only because President Roosevelt ordered him to do so.