“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.”
—Benjamin Franklin

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Tribute to Our Troops
Essay Contest The Saturday Evening Post

Any man who has served in the armed forces for ninety days can attend for a year any approved school or college, and if he was less than twenty-five years of age at induction he is entitled to these benefits for a period equal to his military service after September 16, 1940, for a maximum of four years. The Government pays all bills for tuition and fees up to $500 a year.

It is a splendid bill, a wonderful bill, with only one conspicuous drawback. The guys aren’t buying it. They say “education” means “books,” any way you slice it, and that’s for somebody else.    [“The G.I.’s Reject Education,” Stanley Frank, August 18, 1945]

He was right—partially, and only briefly.

As of February 1, 1945, only 12,844 discharged veterans throughout the country, in a total of 1,500,000, were attending schools under the G. I. Bill. Less than 1 per cent.

Frank had interviewed G.I.s at two veterans hospitals and found them anxious to get home and back to work as quickly as possible. Only 10% showed interest in further education. Most of these soon dropped out of the program.

Boiling down the figures, about 2 per cent of the amputees and neurosurgical cases—those who need it most—indicate an intention of having a go at serious, brain-building learning.

"Although painfully reminiscent of the military barracks they so recently occupied, these double-decker beds in Illinois' Old Gymnasium Annex increased by 300 the number of unmarried ex-servicement the university could accommodate. Beds of any sort are rare than gold at most schools."

We are, perhaps expecting too much of the tired, bewildered, embittered soldier, disassociated as he has been from civilian life, in asking him to plan his career. In normal times, most people have modest ambitions and are content to drift with the tide, evading responsibility if they can.

Though the college-benefit program had been in effect for a short time, some Post editor already saw the education benefit as a giant waste of taxpayer’s money.

Yet, by early the next year, there were signs of a general shift in Americans’ attitude toward education. Civilian adults, like the returning veterans, wanted to make up for the opportunities they’d lost during the war, and the Depression before it. Early in 1946, the Post reported “facilities of the country’s adult-education program are creaking under the load as [Americans] enroll by the hundreds of thousands.”

If, citizens have reasoned, a university can help practicing physicians, engineers, and so on, keep up to date, why can’t it tackle things that have ordinary folks stopped in their tracks?

A Gallup poll last spring indicated that 34 per cent of the adult population—25,000,000 folks—had the impulse to take advantage of part-time educational facilities after the war.   [“Look Who’s Going To School Now!” Harold Titus, Feb. 9, 1946]

And just one year after the Post reported G.I.’s rejected education, it ran “Crisis at the Colleges.”

"'Illiniville,' where these scarce prefabricated houses take care of 275 student veterans with their families. A total of 1200 applied."

Heads of American colleges … are confronted with a reality that has always been a democratic dream: the opportunity to raise the educational attainments of a solid chunk of a whole generation. Because of the Government subsidy to servicemen, the opportunity is here; men who could never come to college under ordinary circumstances are enrolling or knocking at the doors.

[However] the colleges do not have the facilities, the housing, the instructors, or classrooms to handle [the opportunity]. The primary, the immediate, the all-important, problem is housing.

Thousands of eligible veterans were turned away last September because the colleges had no place to quarter them; thousands more were turned away in February at the beginning of the second semester. And yet the enrollment of veterans rose immensely because the colleges did find some place, some way, to house some of them.

Here was the situation at Illinois during the second half of the school year. Total undergraduate enrollment at Urbana … was 12,780. This is more students than ever attended there before. … Total veteran undergraduate enrollment was 5509.

There were veterans living in basements, veterans in garrets, veterans in made-over garages and abandoned filling stations. There were 300 sleeping in double-decker beds in the gaunt building known as the Old Gymnasium Annex.

Gone is the campus where every prospect pleases… Cruelest blows to academic serenity are the clotheslines behind the trailers and prefabricated houses. Along with the leaves of the traditional whispering maples there are, diapers and children’s underpants blowing in the wind.

By the time the program ended in 1956, it had helped 2.2 million Americans attend college and another 6.6 million receive training.

It would be hard to over-estimate the effect on this country made by this wave of America’s college-educated G.I.s. It enabled these men to lead the changing industries of the post-war world. It also produced a higher expectation for education in the American public; a 10th-grade education became less socially acceptable in the growing middle class.

The G.I.-Bill generation passed its faith in education on to the next generation, which passed on to their children. It is still an article of faith to many Americans today despite the low employment rate of college graduates.

A Hasty Prediction For the G.I. Bill The Saturday Evening Post

Although American stocks of materiel were sufficient for tackling Libya, they are far from inexhaustible. In fact, the U.S. military remains critically short of these same types of weapons. Early in the Iraq war, for instance, stocks of precision bombs were so reduced that the Pentagon ordered Boeing to ramp up emergency production. Boeing’s attempts to supply the military’s needs were thwarted by a Swiss company, Micro Crystal, which—angered by the U.S. decision to invade Iraq—ceased delivery of a key part, according to defense officials. Because no firm in the U.S. made the part, finding an American company capable of starting a new production line took the Pentagon seven months. If the most powerful military in the world could run short of a key weapon system against a third-rate military power like Iraq, what would happen if we faced a more powerful opponent such as China?

In the last century, American industrial might twice rescued the democratic world: first from German militarism and then from Axis totalitarianism. After World War I, one of Germany’s top military commanders claimed that his country was not beaten by the Allied military but by “pitiless American industry” that was able to mass produce war materiel on a previously unimaginable scale. Two decades later that same “pitiless industry” became President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” which buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of war materiel belched out of Pittsburgh’s furnaces and Detroit’s assembly lines. Sadly, those days are relegated to the past. As American heavy industry has moved off shore, so has much of the nation’s ability to mobilize the kinds of forces that met the crises of the last century.

Despite rumors to the contrary, however, America still possesses a formidable industrial base. Unfortunately, it is no longer unrivaled by other growing powers. Every passing year sees China further solidifying its position as the world’s production base. According to the Pentagon’s 2011 annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments this “sustained economic development … coupled with an expanding science and technology base, has facilitated a comprehensive and ongoing military modernization program.”

Knowing this, one cannot help but wonder if the U.S. industrial base is still capable of winning the production war in a major conflict. Meanwhile, there is another looming threat that is only beginning to be understood—the globalization of supply chains. In today’s globalized economy a weapon may consist of parts from a dozen or more countries that come together at a single assembly point. At least 50 percent of all of content in any item bought by the Department of Defense must, by law, come off American production lines, and some weapons are 100 percent made in the USA. Still, in certain cases, parts are made in America, shipped to China for assembly, and then shipped back to the U.S. for sale. This presents America’s high technology military with a major problem.

Illustration by Jonathan Bartlett

Then, there is the potential for sabotage anywhere along the supply chain. For instance, many of the microchips purchased for the Pentagon come from China, where they theoretically could be tampered with by Chinese intelligence. And, in fact, in 2010 alone the U.S. Navy purchased more than 59,000 computer chips from China that were discovered to be counterfeit. These chips were destined for use in our most sensitive weapons systems—from missiles to transponders, as reported in Wired magazine. Any or all of these chips could have included malware that would allow the Chinese military to turn off or otherwise wreck whatever systems the chips were inserted within. After counterfeit chips were discovered, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity initiated the Trusted Integrated Circuit Program both to help prevent foreign adversaries from tampering with U.S. chips and to check foreign-sourced chips for flaws after delivery.

But the problems don’t end there. The Pentagon is expecting huge budget cuts as a result of our current wars ending and the nation’s dire economic position.

For this reason, America’s defense industry is scrambling to reduce capacity.

Northrop Grumman, a global aerospace and defense technology company, recently announced plans to close troubled shipyards and leave the shipbuilding industry. This means that one of the country’s five remaining naval shipyards—Avondale—could close for lack of work with a loss of 5,000 jobs.

With those jobs goes decades of shipbuilding experience that will be near impossible to replicate if it is needed in an emergency.

Today U.S. shipyards produce less than one percent of all commercial vessels while Asia builds 95 percent. Without the naval shipyards America would effectively be exiting the shipbuilding business entirely, a sad end for an industry that in World War II produced ships six times faster than Hitler’s submarine wolfpacks could sink them.

In the meantime, China has the capacity to build almost 60 million tons of ships per year and is looking to increase that capacity, according to the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.

In the end, if America loses a future war because of production shortfalls that leave our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines bereft of what they require to fight and win, it won’t be because we lack the capacity. America’s ability to win the wars of tomorrow rests on implementing the economic policies necessary to rebuild our industrial base and ensure the availability of funds required to meet an unforeseen crisis.

Jim Lacey, Ph.D., is the professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. The opinions presented here are entirely his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense or any of its members.

Outsourcing U.S. Military Might The Saturday Evening Post

The War Horse, Model 2011: U.S. Special Forces on horseback in Afghanistan.

The horse was also conscripted during the Korean War. A war horse named Reckless served the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marines on the Bunker Hill-Panmunjom line with such distinction that she earned the rank of sergeant.

Her story, written for the Post by Col. Andy Geer U.S.M.C.R., began when a Marine raiding force was nearly cut off by Chinese troops as it fought its way back into Allied lines. To cover the incoming marines, the battalion created a ‘fire curtain’ using recoilless rifles — called “Reckless Rifles.”

Ammunition carriers ran over hills and across paddies in an exhausting race against time and space. It was a killing job, man-packing the 75-mm. artillery shells to the firing positions. The fire of the recoilless weapons was slowing to an intermittent cough when the last of the raiders married up with the main body.

The battle convinced 2d Lt. Eric Pedersen a horse was required to supply his portable artillery pieces… The next day, though suffering from leg, hip and face wounds, Pedersen hooked a trailer to his jeep and took the rough road south.

His destination was a race track in Seoul, where all racing had been canceled for the duration of the war. There he met breeders eager to sell the horses they could no longer race. Pedersen found a promising young Mongolian mare and paid $250 of his own money for her. Her name had been ‘Flame of the Morning,’ but the Marines soon rechristened her ‘Reckless.’

T/Sgt. Joseph Latham put the recruit through ” hoof ” camp. Long hours were spent in the hills, teaching the little sorrel to become accustomed to a friendly firing and not to bolt when the recoilless rifles back-blasted their horrendous pathway of destruction.

Latham taught her how to cross over communication and barbed wire and to move into a tent or bunker without invitation. Although the marines had built her an open-faced bunker, Reckless roamed the camp, and when it began to rain she walked into the nearest tent. Upon her appearance, a marine would say, “Here’s Reckless,” while the rest simply pulled up their legs or shifted a sleeping bag or two to make room.

By the end of her training, Reckless was routinely carrying ten rounds of 75mm shells: 220 pounds in all. Then, in July, the Chinese launched an all-out attack on four Marine outposts.

The savagery of the battle for the so-called Nevada complex had never been equaled in Marine Corps history.

A 75 mm. recoilless rifle in use during the Korean War.

Reno [had been] lost with all hands aboard. Vegas was lost with heavy casualties. Elko and Carson held tenuously.

Orders came from higher command to recapture Vegas. The second battalion, 5th Marines, was ordered in for the counter-attack, with Reckless and her rifles in close support.

The fury of the battle reached such heights that veterans of the first and middle wars are unable to compare it with previous engagements. Enemy in-coming artillery and mortar shells were judged to be at the rate of 500 rounds a minute.

Losses were staggering. Capt. John Melvin’s D Company of the second battalion (over 600 men) was shot away from a full complement to sixteen men in less than two hours. E Company of the same battalion suffered nearly as badly.

It was under these brutal conditions that the Marine’s war horse showed her indomitable spirit, following her orders without supervision or even guidance.

To supply the guns that were supporting the assault units, the little sorrel had to carry

Reckless and her combat trainer, Sgt. Joseph Latham.

her load of 75-mm. shells across a paddy and into the hills. The distance to the firing positions of the rifles was over 1800 yards. Each yard was passage through a shower of explosives. The final climb to the firing positions was at a nearly forty-five-degree angle.

Because of the steepness of the climb, Latham loaded her with only six rounds.

On the first few trips Latham or Pfc. Gary Craig or Monroe Coleman — particular friends of hers— led her from to the front lines. After the fourth or fifth trip she returned from the forward position to the dump alone.

Upon being loaded, she took off across the paddy without order or direction. Thereafter she marched the fiery gauntlet alone.

Fifty-one times Reckless delivered her load of explosives. All three weapons were kept in action; one fired so fast the barrel crystallized.

Vegas was retaken and held against murderous counterattacks. The violence of battle ebbed, Vegas was secure (until Turkish forces from the U.N.) relieved the marines.

When the fighing was over the battalion’s gratitude toward Reckless was only exceeded by their pride their war horse.

When the 5th Marines held a regimental parade honoring the heroes of the Vegas battle, Reckless passed in review with her unit. She had become a celebrated marine. Generals and colonels came to call on her; newspapermen interviewed her and she appeared on television.

None of this, however, can be said to have affected the distance between her ears. She was content to do her job, live on marine chow and, of a hot day, have a beer before turning in.

The battalion was still on the front line when the Korean cease-fire was signed. The entire unit, plus its war horse, was assembled for a final parade before returning state-side.

At a ceremony as formal as could be arranged on a wind-swept Korean field, Reckless

Reckless welcomed at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. Lt. Eric Pedersen is shown on right.

was cited for her bravery. Maj. Gen. Randolph Pate, division commander, pinned sergeant’s chevrons to her shiny new red-and-gold silk blanket. It was Sergeant Reckless now.

Her farewell citation said, “Disregard for her own safety and conduct under fire were an inspiration to the troops and in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service. Reckless’ attention and devotion to duty make her well qualified for promotion to the rank of sergeant. Her absolute dependability while on missions under fire contributed materially to the success of many battles.”

The Marines refused to leave Reckless behind in Korea. Thanks to considerable string-pulling, favor-cashing, and public support stirred by Reckless’ story in the Post, she was eventually brought to California. She spent the rest of her life as the 1^st Marine Division’s mascot at Camp Pendelton. In 1957, the Post offered this one final postscript to the Reckless’ story.

Combat experience is the best preparation for motherhood: Reckless and Fearless in 1957.

Last month Andy Geer got a phone call from Camp Pendleton, California, where Reckless had been pastured with other horses, announcing that the Sergeant, who is lady, had that day foaled a son, named Fearless.

Go to www.sgtreckless.com to learn more about this remarkable war horse, and how you can help build her a memorial monument.

A War Horse Earns Her Sergeant’s Stripes: 1953 The Saturday Evening Post

Ever since 1931, the U.S. had been pressuring Japan to withdraw the army it had sent to conquer Manchuria and, eventually, all of China. America had tried exerting diplomatic pressure, but to no avail. The Japanese Imperial Government’s primary goal was to become the conquering ruler of Asia.

When diplomacy didn’t work, President Roosevelt reduced, then ended American export of machinery to Japan. When that didn’t work, he stopped all sales of American oil. Even though its operations in China were running out of gas, Japan persisted. Finally the government froze Japanese assets in the U.S. Roosevelt knew how the Japanese would respond when he signed the order locking Japan’s wealth in American banks. “This means war,” he told his chief adviser.

Washington expected a declaration of war from Tokyo, to be quickly followed by an attack on a distant base. In late November, 1941, the Defense Department ordered every military base in the Pacific to remain at high alert because “hostile action” with Japan was possible at any moment.

No one anticipated that, within a week, Japan would launch a massive, long-planned attack on our fleet before it even declared war.

However, readers of the Post knew that Japan was desperate and audacious enough to try something like it. Since 1939, they’d read articles by the Asian correspondent Hallett Abend, which chronicled the rising militancy in Japan. In the Post of March 4, 1939, he wrote about Japan’s vast security and espionage networks and the growing recklessness of its military. In August, he told readers how much Japan was willing to gamble on conquering China:

Japan’s foreign gold reserve, which in 1925 totaled about 2,000,000,000 yen, is now entirely exhausted…the yen is so shaky that Americans, British, French, and Dutch banks in Shanghai will not accept Japanese currency.

If Japan can succeed in carrying out her plans for grab in China, she may become one of the richest nations in the world within a decade. But there will be only very small profits, or no profits at all, so long as the Chinese continue their military resistance.

In April of 1941, he exploded the comforting myth that the Japanese would never have an effective air force because they simply couldn’t fly.

Japanese mothers all carry their babies on their backs, you know. Heads wobble around so much in infancy that adult Japanese have no sense of balance.

Very interesting—but nonsense, of course. The story is typical of the dozens of old wives’ tales going the rounds about the congenital unfitness of the Japanese as aviators.

It is believed that the Air Military Academy trained more than 700 new pilots during 1940, with the probability of a much larger class this year.

The present strength of the army’s air force…[and] the navy’s…gives Japan around 6000 pilots.

In September of last year, [Japan] had upward of 4000 efficient war planes. Since then she has been turning out about 250 planes a month, so that by the end of February of this year, allowing deductions for losses in China, Nippon’s war air fleet topped 5,000 planes.

In contrast, Abend admitted, there were no more than 7,000 military aircraft—and 40% of these were sluggish trainer planes.

Japan had planned on building several thousand more planes in 1941. However—

the shortage of alloy steels and the growing difficulty of importing machine tools has prevented this peak from being reached. The United States will sell Japan none.

Just two weeks before the Pearl attack, Abend gave a surprisingly accurate picture of Japan’s current position toward the U.S.

This untitled cartoon by Herbert Johnson appeared alongside Hallett Abend's April 19, 1941 article, "Yes, The Japanese Can Fly"

Japan is exasperated… She finds herself baffled and checked by the two things she fears most—the might of the American Navy in the Pacific, and the possibility of losing her vital trade with the United States. She must retain that trade at all costs. And she must not risk a collision with the American Navy. Yet, if she goes ahead and grabs everything she wants in the Far East, she will almost certainly risk trouble with our Navy.

Japan has jockeyed herself into a position where it is almost necessary to have all or nothing. If she decides that the United States is the barrier to the coveted all, Japan is quite capable of provoking a war with us, just as an individual Japanese commits hara-kiri rather than confess to failure.

America has studiously remained scrupulously neutral during more than two years of the China Japanese hostilities, even though American sympathies have been overwhelmingly on the side of the Chinese. This neutrality has been carried to the extent of continuing a trade in war materials and supplies with Japan. There is only one thing that would drive America to a reluctant abandonment of the neutral attitude. This would be deliberate and intolerable provocation on the part of Japan herself.

That “deliberate and intolerable” provocation arrived two weeks after this article appeared, and left 2,402 Americans dead.

The next time an enemy struck at America, the fatalities—all civilians—reached 2,996. This new enemy, though, hid his intentions even better than did Imperial Japan.

What We Knew Before Pearl Harbor The Saturday Evening Post

For more Rockwell WWII covers, see: “The All-American Soldier: Willie Gillis” and “Thanks Robert Buck, Good-bye Willie Gillis.”

Classic Covers: World War II The Saturday Evening Post

We’ve come a long way in the past century, when the government discharged veterans with little help to resume their lives and careers, and Americans viewed their return as a challenge to their standard of living. As a Post editorial observed,

In time, millions of Americans will be released from military service and return to civil life… [already] war’s enormous demands upon industry are diminishing or have ceased.

A good many people are disturbed over that prospect.

Various expedients have been suggested—some of them admirable, such as reclaim­ing more land for agriculture by irrigation, drainage, and so on. ["Demobilizing" Nov. 30, 1918]

The expedient to which they referred was the land-reclamation project launched by Franklin K. Lane, the Secretary of the Interior. The Post offered Lane’s own explanation of the project:

“These boys will come back. How are we to meet them? They will be proud; they will have seen the world as we have never been able to see it; they will have a spirit that we will envy and a comradeship that we can never have.We do not want to give them charity. We could not if we wanted to.

“[However] we have approximately from 200 million to 250 million acres of land at present unused which can be made as productive as any agricultural land in the world.

“It is an easy thing to do. The land is there; and we should say to the boys… ‘Here is a job at your hand; current wages, four dollars a day, if you please. Go; build dams on the Colorado Rivera. Go; redeem swamps in Southern Maryland. Go; clear the lands in Northern Michigan.” ["When the Boys Get Back From France," Nov. 30, 1918]

The ultimate goal was to create new farm land in the western states, which veterans could buy with a 10% down payment.

“[The veteran-farmer] will add to the wealth of the nation; but he will add far more than the physical wealth—he will add a richness of life and independence of spirit, and have in his heart always gladness, because he…found on his return that he had come back to a republic that was not ungrateful.

“The opportunity is…to bring the land and the soldier together, to provide work and homes for hundreds of thousands of American citizens, to furnish a supply of foodstuffs sufficient for our growing population.”

It was an admirable idea to many, but Emerson Hough, the Post’s “Out-Of-Doors” columnist, saw it as a threat to the wilderness.

Secretary Lane’s reclamation idea is born out of this war. It surely will tend to kill American outdoor sports.

The interior Department has taken stock of every acre of wild land in America—marsh, forest, desert or foothill. Millions of acres of unused lands have been discovered which are now to be utilized—

Surely this means that the last of the American wild places are to be used as soon as possible. The last resort of wild game—the last home of the last bird and beast—is to be cleared, drained, plowed and planted. Enter industry; exit game; exit sport. Enter a new country and new philosophy of all work and no play—unless that shall be play in some rich man’s yard.

It [could mean] the growth of the law of trespass; a future of less and less open sport in America.["Sport After the War," March 1, 1918]

Both Lane and Hough were wrong.

The wilderness did not disappear. The hydroelectric projects did not destroy the beauty of places like

Crop failures, drought, and falling prices doomed many farms, and farm towns like this one in Keota, Colorado.

Jackson Lake in Jackson Hole, as Hough declared they would. Even more land was set aside for national parks, making the wilderness open to more Americans.

Lane’s hope for a new generation of veteran-farmers never materialized either. When the Federal government stopped buying food for the war effort, farmers had surplus crops at the 1918 and 1919 harvest. Prices dropped. Farms failed. New farms made in the high plains of the Dakotas, Montana, and Colorado quickly depleted the soil, adding to the number of farm failures. In 1920, for the first time, more Americans lived in towns and cities than farms.

Instead of choosing careers for veterans, today’s GI benefits help veterans pursue their own futures. And have proven a much wiser investment.

America’s Early Effort to Honor Its Veterans The Saturday Evening Post

As late as 1942, though, Eisenhower was still unknown to America. That year, Post writer Demaree Bess wrote “The Army’s Favorite General” to introduce him to the country that would soon be entrusting him with their sons.

The toughest assignment in the world today is the opening of a second front. Meet the soldier who has it, Ike Eisenhower, of Kansas and London.

A few weeks ago, talking in Washington with a veteran Army colonel, I remarked that I was gathering material for an article about Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who has been sent to England to organize the American share of the second front against Germany.

“Well, you’ll find it hard sledding to write an exciting article about Ike Eisenhower,” commented the colonel. “There’s nothing romantic about him. He’s never done anything spectacular. The public never heard of him until a few months ago, and most of the politicians have never laid eyes on him. But there is one thing about Ike Eisenhower—he’s the Army’s favorite general.”

That phrase—”the Army’s favorite general”— stuck in my mind. I decided to find out whether it was true and, if so, why. Now, having talked with dozens of officers and men who know General Eisenhower, I have concluded that it probably is true. Certainly his appointment is unanimously approved by the soldiers—from generals to privates— who have worked with him and over him, and under him, during his twenty-seven years in the regular Army of the United States.

The exciting part of General Eisenhower’s story lies, not in his personal life, but in his professional career. A little more than a year ago, Dwight D. Eisenhower was just one of several thousand colonels in our regular Army; and, so far as the American public knew, he was no different from the rest. But today he is one of our Army’s sixteen lieutenant generals, holding rank equivalent to the highest that George Washington attained. He has been advanced more rapidly than any other American officer. More than that, he has been handed the toughest assignment at the disposal of the War Department—that of cracking German defenses on the continent of Europe.

Bess assured the country that this young (52 years old that year) general had risen without influential friends or powerful connections. He had risen through the ranks on merit alone. He had graduated in the upper half of his West Point class. During the First World War, he had earned a brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel for his work in training America’s fledgling tank corp. General MacArthur was so impressed by this unassuming young man, he chose him as his top military aide in the Philippines. The top brass were impressed with this young officer’s ability to see the big picture without losing sight of practical matters.

One reason why General Eisenhower was selected for his present post is that he was perhaps the first of our staff officers to suggest a second front… when asked for his plans, he submitted details which persuaded his superiors that his plans are both brilliant and sound. He was able to create these plans because, for more than a quarter of a century, he has been an inspired student of mechanized warfare and because, in recent large-scale maneuvers in this country, he revealed extraordinary originality in his direction of this type of combat.

What Bess couldn’t know at the time of this article was that Eisenhower also had a genius for diplomacy.  Time after time, Ike was able to win cooperation from Allied generals and politicians. He spent years was negotiating, arguing,, pleading, cajoling, and manipulating such prickly men as Churchill, General Bernard Montgomery, George Patton, Charles de Gaulle, and the Russian General Zhukov, to keep the great alliance alive.

Perhaps his great accomplishment was successfully landing 24,000 soldiers on the French coast, directly in sight of massive German defences. It was an extraordinary feat of planning, which called for the kind of military genius needed in modern war, as described by British essayist Walter Bagehot:

The soldier—that is, the great soldier—of today is not a romantic animal, dashing at forlorn hopes, animated by frantic sentiment, full of fancies as to a love-lady or a sovereign; but a quiet, grave man, busied in charts, exact in sums, master of the art of tactics, occupied in trivial detail; thinking most of the shoes of his soldiers, as the Duke of Wellington was said to do; despising all manner of éclat and eloquence; perhaps, like Count Moltke, silent in seven languages.

General Eisenhower is not exactly a grave and quiet man; he likes plenty of good conversation and his share of fun. But he certainly is no “romantic animal, dashing at forlorn hopes.” Being an infantryman, he knows the importance of shoes for his soldiers; and, being a tank expert and a qualified pilot, he fully appreciates the role of tanks and air- planes in modern warfare. For more than a year he has been “busied in charts” which directly concern his present mission; and his associates can attest to his passion for “trivial detail.”

Next: Eisenhower’s Great Decision

Introducing Ike: “The Army’s Favorite General” The Saturday Evening Post

Farm Appetites – Clyde Forsythe – November 24, 1917

Farm AppetitesClyde ForsytheCountry GentlemanNovember 11, 1917

We have plenty of poignant wartime covers, but this one is fun! These are hearty farm-boys-turned-soldiers, and the painting is appropriately named: “Farm Appetites.” It was done by cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, a friend of Norman Rockwell. In fact, it was Forsythe who encouraged the reticent, nervous young Rockwell to try to sell a cover to the venerable Saturday Evening Post. So Forsythe not only painted history, he helped to make it.

Women Work for War – Charles A. MacLellan – July 20, 1918

Women Work for War
Charles A. MacLellan
September 8, 1917

And who, pray, worked the land while the male farm hands were fighting the war? The “women’s land army”, that’s who. Some were country girls, others were out of their element working farms, but the women of the U.S. and Europe wanted to do their part back home.

Her Boy – K.R. Wireman” – September 15, 1917

Her BoyK. R. WiremanCountry GentlemanSeptember 15, 1917

Another seldom-seen Country Gentleman cover shows a proud mother at the mailbox, receiving a photo of her son in uniform. Let’s hope he’s back at the farm soon. This was by artist K.R. Wireman.

Necessary Height – Norman Rockwell – June 16, 1917

Necessary HeightNorman RockwellJune 16, 1917

Back at The Saturday Evening Post, a gent we all know and love, Norman Rockwell, was also recognizing the war in his art. Only about 22 himself at the time, Rockwell shows us that even the youngsters were getting into the war effort. Playing recruiter, a boy (notice the “recruiting poster”) seems to be questioning the qualifications of a vertically challenged applicant.

Uncle Sam – Herbert Johnson – June 16, 1917

Uncle SamHerbert JohnsonCountry GentlemanJune 16, 1917

This trio was vitally important to the nation in World War I. The American soldier, good old Uncle Sam and the American farmer. This was from a painting by Herbert Johnson, a well-known political cartoonist for both the Post and Country Gentleman.

Soldier’s Christmas – J.C. Leyendecker – December 22, 1917

Solders ChristmasJ.C. LeyendeckerDecember 22, 1917

I can’t leave without sharing my favorite World War I cover, “Soldier’s Christmas” by J.C. Leyendecker. A soldier is sharing his meager holiday meal with a tiny French girl. Can’t help it – gets me every time.

Classic Covers: World War I The Saturday Evening Post

Over 600 miles northwest of New Zealand, Norfolk was a tiny, peaceful island before the Japanese eyed it in 1942. “Norfolk Islanders, for the most part,” the article recounts, “were still dreaming about their forbears who put old Captain Bligh off the Bounty and sailed off to new lands…” The descendants of Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian and other mutineers “brought the Bounty to Pitcairn Island. By 1853, Pitcairn had become crowded and the mutineers’ descendants petitioned Queen Victoria for a new home.” They were settled on Norfolk Island (which they got for a steal, as you will read in the article).

“Fletcher Christian’s a good friend of mine,” Sergeant Lynam stated in the article. “He doesn’t look like Clark Gable, by any means, because Fletch is only twelve. But he’s a long-distance descendant of the man who led the mutiny on the bounty.”

Fast forward to World War II. A new airstrip on the island and its traffic control station were vital for supply planes heading to the Solomon Islands. Sergeant Lynam was sent to oversee things, landing “a choice job, one of the Army’s best,” according to the article. “His friends aren’t going to believe him after the war,” the author states. “One lone American with a staff of four women on a South Pacific Island.”

It was unusual that a one-man army commanded a location. So much so, that a general stopping off at Norfolk “asked to see the commanding general of American troops, and was so surprised when he was confronted by the entire garrison in the person of Sergeant Lynam that he forgot what he wanted to say.”

The American “troops” on Norfolk “can’t complain because of the lack of sports facilities,” says the article. “Sergeant Lynam shoots a neat 50 on the islands nine-hole golf course. The swimming along the sand beach is tops. There are three or four tennis courts and unlimited horses to ride.” Pretty top-notch for a former penal colony. Sergeant Lynam was also well versed in the lore and legends of the island’s times of housing convicts.

From his origins in Indiana, he settled in South Haven, Michigan. The former “one-man army” is still married to “the love of my life” after 63 years. Life hasn’t always been “cushy” – he suffered from malaria three times after serving on Guadalcanal. In South Haven “I have had 2 heart attacks and a few bad falls, but all with full recovery and am healthy and happy and will be 89 years of age on May 26.” Happy birthday from your friends at the Post, Wib!

Norfolk “was a truly fascinating experience that I will always cherish,” wrote Mr. Lynam. “At the ripe old age of 89, I am still alive and well and still live with my memories of beautiful Norfolk Island and my pride at having been featured in the article in The Saturday Evening Post.” We share this article with pride in veterans like Sergeant Lynam and our current homesick troops who will understand that, scenic Island Paradise or not, the young Sergeant was quoted as saying, “I’d trade it all for an Indiana snowstorm.”

Read “The War’s Cushiest Billet” by Capt. Carlton Zucker [PDF].

The One-Man Army The Saturday Evening Post

Coby was an Alabama lad, six feet five tall; with blue eyes and a smile that spilled over from some inner reservoir of delight. He walked around in his private cloud, always grinning, humming, chuckling, telling himself stories, slapping his thighs in gratitude for his own inexhaustible good company. “Man, oh, man,” he would chortle, “that’s mighty fine stuff. Yes, suh, yes, suh, that’s mighty fine stuff.” He was entirely at home with himself — his body, his history, his reveries. He was the happiest man I ever knew. His moods ran an exceptionally narrow gamut, being bounded at the lower end by pleasure and at the upper range by bliss. The only thing he was sensitive about was his height, which he unfailingly gave, in rueful confession, at “five foot seventeen.”

On the post we always knew when Coby was about to materialize; you could hear, in advance, the humming or whistling or chuckling of his unremittent dialogue with himself. Hear it? No. Overhear it. For his contact with any of us—with the universe beyond his own fantasies — was fragmentary, and oddly compassionate. I think he felt sorry for everyone who did not live with him in the remembered past with which he chose to replace the present.

Coby was an exceedingly co-operative soldier, but he was most oddly co-ordinated. His limbs seemed to live a life independent of his torso. When Coby drew himself to attention, he did it in pieces, as it were —as if his brain were obliged to send messages to the outlying provinces of his bodily empire; naturally it took more time for a foot to respond than, say, a hand, since the one was so much farther away from headquarters than the other.

Coby looked strong — very strong — but he did not feel strong. And a man who does not feel strong simply is not able to lift certain loads, or move certain objects, or heave, haul, toss or carry things which much weaker men manage to do because they want to be strong. This was an illusion Coby had never seriously entertained. He did not give a damn about physical strength; he wanted harmony, not power. He found himself in a world where men competed — for jobs, for women, for money, for promotions. Coby never competed for anything. He was content with himself, encouraged himself, enjoyed himself and admired himself. “His ego,” the post psychiatrist later remarked in a special report to the C.O.,” is inaccessible to conventional appeals.”

It certainly was. Coby was the only private in the United States Army who never made his bed; his sergeant made his bed for him, each and every morning. I think he is the only private in military history whom neither sergeants nor lieutenants nor captains nor majors nor colonels could prevail upon. They tried — all of them. Lord knows they tried. They tried command and cajolery, threats and bluster and reprisals, but Coby would not make his bed. He would hear out the orders, the threats, the reasoning, the appeals to sense, to teamwork, to esprit de corps. Then all he’d say, with the utmost kindliness, was: ‘”Tain’t fit for a grown man to make his own bed.”

All this broke upon our collective awareness the first morning after Coby was shipped to our installation. His sergeant came into quarters just before inspection to find Coby staring out the window happily, humming a roundelay. His bed was unmade.
Sergeant Pulaski, an uncomplicated Polish boy from Chicago, called, “Clay!”

“Yes, suh,” Coby beamed.

“Clay,” said Sergeant Pulaski sternly, “You didn’t make your bed.”

“That’s right, suh.”

Sergeant Pulaski wrinkled his brow. “Why not?”

Coby said, “‘Tain’t fit for a grown man to make his own bed.”
Sergeant Pulaski, who had a gift for unvarnished command, put his fists on his hips at once and barked, “What the hell kind of stuff is that?”

“Back home,” said Coby, “my maw always makes my bed. Ever since I been born my maw always made that bed.”

“In the Army,” said Sergeant Pulaski very slowly, “there ain’t no mommas to make no beds. In the Army, soldier, everyone except officers makes his own bed. Now make that bed.”

Coby took thought and shook his head with an air of the most amiable reluctance. “Suh, I don’t want to make no trouble for nobody, nohow, but I jest cain’t do it.”

“And why, may I ask, cain’t you just do it?”

“Because I jest couldn’t face my maw again if I made my own bed.”

Sergeant Pulaski stared at Coby, tightened his lips, said, “A guy asks for trouble he’s gonna get trouble,” and stalked out.

Coby lay down on his bed and played the harmonica. In less than five minutes, Sergeant Pulaski returned with Lieutenant Bienstock. Bienstock, a second lieutenant with fuzz on his cheek, but not on his chin, was an enthusiastic exponent of that come-on-fellows-let’s-all-put-our-shoulders-to-the-wheel-together attitude which never fails to puzzle military observers from abroad, who expect an army to be divided simply into these who command and those who obey.

He hastened into the barracks now with shining eyes, alert ears and palpitating disbelief. “Which one? Where, sergeant? Which one is it? . . . That one? Oh. . . . On your feet, soldier.”

As Coby undulated himself upward, part after part, until he stood more or less at attention, Lieutenant Bienstock paled slightly.
“Mornin’, suh,” Coby smiled.

Lieutenant Bienstock glanced uneasily at Sergeant Pulaski and said, “Now, listen. Clay. You don’t want to get into any trouble, do you? And we certainly don’t want to make you any trouble. Now, what’s all this I hear about your not intending to make your bed?”
Coby looked down at his superior from bland, unruffled heights. “I don’t want to make no trouble for nobody nohow. I like it here, suh. But I never made up no bed in m’whole life. It jest don’t feel right, and I couldn’t look my maw in the eye agin.”

Lieutenant Bienstock stared at the kind, forbearing face above him, and, in a slightly strained voice, asked, “Do you realize what you’re saying. Clay? Do you know what this means? Why—you’re deliberately refusing to obey an order from a superior officer!”

“Oh, no, suh,” Coby said. “I ain’t refusin’ t’obey no one, nohow. No. suh.”

“Then you’ll go ahead and make that bed.”

“Cain’t,” said Coby.

“You certainly can. You know you can, and it’s silly to say you can’t.”

“Cain’t,” said Coby.

Lieutenant Bienstock glanced at Sergeant Pulaski nervously, wet his lips, studied the ceiling for a moment, and said, “Sergeant, take this man to Captain Howard’s office. Wait for me there.”

“Right.” Sergeant Pulaski saluted and nodded to Coby, who regarded Lieutenant Bienstock in the kindest possible way before ambling out. Bienstock lighted a cigarette quickly, inhaled deeply, and thought very hard, organizing all his thoughts. There were a great many of them. Then he hurried out and headed for Captain Howard’s office.

Coby was sitting on a long bench, one foot drawn up with his elbow on it, his hand dangling loosely, moving in lazy rhythm to his humming. Sergeant Pulaski was standing next to him in the correctest possible military posture. Lieutenant Bienstock regarded Coby sententiously, giving him one last chance to recant. Coby started to mobilize his bodily ingredients for ascent with a smile so understanding that Lieutenant Bienstock turned on his heel and strode into Captain Howard’s private office.

Captain Howard was a mint sucker. He was efficient, crisp, hard-working and mean. An automobile salesman from Wichita, he was a stern believer in fair play, cold showers and clean thoughts. His thoughts were so clean that he spent most of his free time planning a laundry service he was going to run as soon as his term of service was over. He was the kind of partial personality known as “a man’s man.” He had few friends and many doubts. When he was sure no one was watching, he bit his nails. When he went to sleep, he looked anxious.

He was tallying up some requisition forms when Lieutenant Bienstock entered. Bienstock saluted smartly, accepted Captain Howard’s cursory “Proceed,” and recited the details of Private Coby Clay’s one-man defiance of the simplest and most universal requirement of military life.

When he finished, Captain Howard looked up with an expression of incipient outrage. “He won’t make his bed?”

Lieutenant Bienstock cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. He says he won’t make his bed.”

Captain Howard stared at Bienstock as if at one who had just told him the sun had risen in the west that morning.

“He says it’s against his principles, sir,” said Bienstock.

“His principles?” Captain Howard echoed. “What the hell is he, a Mohammedan or something?”

“No, sir. He’s from the South.”

“So what? Half this installation is — “

“Says his maw always made his bed for him an it ‘tain’t — it isn’t fit for a grown man to make his own bed.”

Captain Howard leaned forward, hunched his shoulders like a fullback plowing through the line, and cried, “His maw? What the hell’s the matter with you, Bienstock?”

“Nothing, sir,” said Bienstock with a pained expression. “I was just quoting.”

“He calls his mother ‘maw’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he a hillbilly or something?”

Bienstock hesitated. “I think he’s an illiterate, sir.”

“To hell with that. I don’t care if he’s a Mason. Do you mean to stand there and say you let a damn dogface pull something like refusing to make his own bed on you?

“Sir, I explained and insisted and argued with him, and I even –”

Howard’s face assumed various hues of impatience as Lieutenant Bienstock proceeded. This made Lieutenant Bienstock more nervous, and he began to stammer. This made Captain Howard’s lips thread themselves so that contempt replaced impatience. This made Lieutenant Bienstock blush. This made Captain Howard slap his desk with his open palm and snap, “You argued with him? What the hell’s the matter with you anyway, Bienstock? You’re an officer of the United States Army! Act like one. Throw that no-good, gold-bricking louse in the guardhouse.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me! Throw him in the can!”

“I thought —“

“Don’t! Give him to the MP’s, boy—to the MP’s. Twenty-four hours in the cooler will’cool off that joker. It’s as simple as that. ‘He won’t make his bed.’ Ha! “It ain’t fit for a grown man,’” Howard repeated in disgust. “Holy Moses, man, even the communists make their own beds! Dismissed!”

Lieutenant Bienstock wiped his brow the minute he got outside the door, signaled to Sergeant Pulaski, and strode out while Sergeant Pulaski told Coby, “Up!” When they were more than fifty feet from Captain Howard’s office, Lieutenant Bienstock made a last earnest effort with Coby, who listened with the utmost consideration. You could see that he wouldn’t want to hurt Lieutenant Bienstock’s feelings for anything in the world. But what he said, after Bienstock’s moving appeal to reason, was “’Tain’t fit for a grown man to— “

“Sergeant,” said Bienstock manfully, “take this man to the guardhouse! By order of Captain Howard.”

Coby spent that day and night behind bars. He spent most of the day singing and slept through the night like a particularly contented lamb.

Sergeant Pulaski was waiting for Coby with a knowing smile when Coby returned to the barracks from the guardhouse the next day.

Coby was delighted to see him. “Man, oh, man,” he chuckled, “I caught up on plenty of shut-eye.”

Pulaski said, “O.K., Coby. Let’s us have no more trouble from you, huh?”

Coby’s eyes moved serenely around the room, coming to rest on his own bed in the far corner. It looked as neat, tight and oblong as a coffin.

“We got commended for neat quarters this morning,” said Sergeant Pulaski defensively. “O.K., O.K., so I made the bed up myself. But no more trouble from you, huh. Clay?”

“No, suh,” said Coby. “I ain’t aimin’ to give nobody—”

“— no trouble no how,” Pulaski finished. “I heard you. Now get the lead out and fall in with your squad.”

Coby spent the day training with his company, went to sleep that night, rose the next morning, helped his comrades mop the floor and sweep the stairs, lent a helping hand to one and all, humming and smiling all the while—but he did not make his bed. Sergeant Pulaski looked baffled as he went out to find Lieutenant Bienstock once more.

Bienstock gave Coby a fervent ten-minute lecture on military discipline, Captain Howard’s cold heart and the reputation of Colonel Fenshaw, a terror in disciplinary matters. Coby could not have been more interested in these novel insights into the military organization of which he was so new a part. But he would not sacrifice his principles; he would not sully his mother’s image of him; he would not make his bed. He returned to the guardhouse. And Sergeant Pulaski made his bed again, while Coby sang for his colleagues in the can.

The next day Coby was back with his fellows. That night he slept in the bed which Sergeant Pulaski had made that morning. The next morning he declined to make his bed, with real affection and regret, and went to the guardhouse again.

This went on for a week, Coby spending alternate nights at the guardhouse, sleeping alternate nights in the bed which the desperate Sergeant Pulaski so despairingly made for him. When it seemed clear that Coby Clay was willing to spend the rest of his days in this idyllic double life, Lieutenant Bienstock reported to Captain Howard with an unmistakable note of panic in his voice.

Captain Howard studied Lieutenant Bienstock with disgust mingled with disbelief, saying, between his many fine, well-brushed teeth, “Bring that soldier in to me.” He had never laid eyes on Coby Clay.

When Coby presented himself, Captain Howard was on the telephone, his back to the door, reading aloud from a report and chewing out a lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps. Captain Howard was feeling especially curt, concise and complete that day. He slammed the phone down, turned in his chair, deliberately keeping his eyes on the report, waiting for the familiar phrase: “Private – reporting, sir,” from the erect body on the other side of the desk. He did not get the salutation, because Coby did not know it.

Captain Howard put his pencil down slowly, exactly parallel to the blotter pad, assumed an expression of icy foreboding, then lifted his eyes up the height of the private waiting for his dispensation. This calculated movement of the eyes had always before served Captain Howard’s purposes; it was a kind of slow deflation of the other’s ego, a deliberate chopping down of hope or pretension, a tactical maneuver which made it crystal-clear who was standing and who was sitting and who was going to continue standing at the sole pleasure of who was sitting. But Lieutenant Bienstock had forgotten to tell Captain Howard how tall Coby Clay was. By the time Captain Howard’s gaze had reached the unexpected height of Coby’s chin, Wilbur Howard, who was only five feet eight had his head far in the socket of his neck and his eyes were bugged into an involuntary bulge.

Coby was smiling sheepishly, us he always did when people first comprehended his height. “ I come right over here, suh, jest like that there other fellow told me.”

“Who?” asked Captain Howard.

“That there other fellow. The one brought me here before.”
Captain Howard could feel his neck getting hot. “That ‘other fellow’ is Lieutenant Bienstock, and you will refer to him hereafter by name.”

“He never told me his name,” said Coby.

“Well, I’m telling you his name!” Captain Howard said, slamming his open palm upon the desk. “And even if you don’t know his name, you could call him lieutenant. You understand that much, don’t you?”

“Is that what that there fella is?” asked Coby, always grateful for increment to his store of knowledge. “A lieutenan’? My!”

Captain Howard turned sideward and poured himself a glass of water, noting with relief that his hands were quite steady. He sipped the water slowly, held the glass in his hand, studied it, placed the glass back on the table to his left, leaned forward, put his palms together and said in a low, even voice. “Clay, I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you. I’ll say it slowly, so there is not the slightest chance you’ll misunderstand. It involves your making a decision that may affect your whole life. Are you ready?”

Coby drew his brows together, thinking over every word Captain Howard had uttered, and nodded.

Captain Howard took a long breath and let it out, word by word. “Either you make your bed every morning, without a single complaint, or I’ll put you in the guardhouse for a whole, solid, thirty-day month.” He fixed Coby with his deadliest I-take-no-nonsense-from-anyone stare.

“Is that clear?”

Coby nodded.

“You understand it?”

Coby nodded again.

“Any question you want to ask?”

Coby shook his head.

“Fine. Now, which will it be?”

“How’s that again, suh?” asked Coby.

Captain Howard gritted his many teeth. ‘”Which—will—it—be? Make your bed every- morning or go to the jug for thirty days?”

Coby sighed, endowing the man seated before and below him with infinite compassion. “I don’t want to make no trouble for no one nohow, suh, but ‘tain’t fit for a grown man to–

The blood drained out of Captain Howard’s face, and all sorts of evil thoughts welled up in him and had to be denied. He pressed a button on his desk crisply. “Good-by, soldier.”

Coby spent the next month in the guardhouse. It was, according to the reports that swept through our installation with the speed of a forest fire, the happiest month in Coby’s life. The MP’s and Captain Howard and Major Forman—to whom Captain Howard brought the problem, confessing defeat—simply could not believe it. They could understand it, but they could not believe it. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

For Coby Clay was behaving in such a way that the entire theory of punishment as a deterrent force was in danger. Every day Coby spent happily in the guardhouse meant that the punitive was losing its power, its symbolic warning. For the whole idea of a guardhouse, or any place of confinement, rests on the assumption that detention is hateful to man’s free spirit, crippling to man’s free soul. But now one whole sector of the United States Army was confronted with a man for whom detention held no terrors, confinement meant no deprivation, discipline represented no threat. The awful, confounding truth which was dawning on our brass was this: Private Coby Clay, of Alabama, liked the guardhouse. In fact, he preferred it to the barracks. There was something about the bounded, ordered microcosm of detention that appealed to Coby no end; life was reduced to its simplest form—devoid of conflict or the irksome necessities of choice. In the guardhouse, Coby slept like a king, ate like a horse and sang like an angel for one and all.

The fact that Coby declined to make his bed while in the guardhouse too—politely, but without uncertainly—presented its own special problem to the MP’s; after all, there was no other guardhouse to which you could send a man in punishment for not making his bed in the guardhouse in which he was. “What in hell can I do?” Major Inglehart, the MP in charge, was often heard to moan. No one knew how to answer him.

Nor was this all. The other prisoners, who regarded Coby with both affection and respect, were beginning to be converted to Coby’s unique philosophy of life; the insidious idea began to germinate in their brains that perhaps they could get away with not making their beds. To nip this development in the bud, Major Inglehart transferred Coby to a cell with one Lacy Bucks, a young enlistee from Mississippi who could not endure Yankees but felt blixid-brother lo anyone south of Kentucky. The major interviewed Private Bucks personally and, after a certain amount of shilly-shallying, ordered Bucks to make up Coby’s bed every morning. “And don’t tell anyone you’re doing it,” said Inglehart darkly.

Bucks seemed perfectly contented to do this for the major, relying on justice to reward him in the end. Coby, of course, never had reason to tell anyone who it was that was making his bed. He never needed to initiate any discussion of the bed problem at all; it was no problem to him. At home, his maw had, and so on. Then Sergeant Pulaski had; now Lacy Bucks did. It was the most natural thing in the world to Coby Clay.

We all knew that things simply could not go on this way forever. Besides, there was the problem of work details. Men being punished in a guardhouse cannot, obviously, be permitted to spend their days in happy idleness while all around them earnest comrades drill like furies, crawl through mud, contest with barbed wire, run obstacle courses with full pack under a merciless sun. The Army cannot be that naive.

Major Inglehart put Coby, Private Bucks and a barrel-chested Italian boy named Tony Caralucciano into a detail to police the grounds. It seemed a safe-enough assignment. But as it worked out, that threesome damn near demoralized our entire installation. For on any well-run army post every prisoner must be accompanied by an armed guard whenever he—I mean the prisoner—is allowed outside the guardhouse. Each man out of our guardhouse was followed, wherever he went, by a fully armed MP with a rifle, ammunition belt and battle helmet. This meant that as Coby, Lacy Bucks and Tony Caralucciano ambled happily across the grounds—in a memorable formation which I shall describe forthwith—three MP’s, carrying rifles und wearing battle helmets, marched stiffly behind in slow parade. And since the heat was very great on our post that summer, often clawing at our senses with shimmering hands, the three prisoners in fatigue clothes were conspicuously more comfortable than their nominally freer custodians.

The formation of the work detail added its own particular piquancy to the scene. Coby always took the middle spot, looming up above Lacy Bucks on his right and Tony Curalucciano on his left. Tony carried a long pole with a nail at the end; Lacy carried a burlap sack. As the three devoted men moved lazily across the ground they had been assigned to make bereft of trash, Tony would spear a piece of paper—a chewing-gum wrapper, an envelope, a crumpled ball of unrequited love—on the end of the nail that was on the end of the pole, and would hold the pole out toward Coby. Coby would then remove the paper from the nail with the utmost delicacy, crooking his little finger, would bring his hand across from left lo right, where Lacy Bucks was holding the sack open, and would then let the piece of paper drop daintily into the sack. He hummed or sung during the entire operation. This helped the morale of his guards considerably.

Tony Caralucciano had a fine saloon voice and, in the great tradition of the people from whom his stock flowed, was a passionate lover of Verdi and Puccini. Lucy Bucks was strictly a hot-jazz type, the kind who tries to find in life somewhere the archaic excitations of the syncopated. Coby, a man of broad and generous interests, liked to sing anything. And these three good men soon learned to float together on the sea of their common fantasies, singing or humming while they worked and as the moment moved them. It was a thing beautiful to hear and, once heard, never to be forgotten. It went like this:

Each morning when the trio moved into position ahead of their helmeted Cerberi, Coby would greet the day by humming a note—any note, whichever note best suited his mood. His mood was unfailingly happy. If Tony was feeling very operatic he would take off, using Coby’s theme note as a springboard, into anything from Tosca to Madame Butterfly. If it was Lacy Bucks who was in touch with his private muses, he would give out with anything from One o’Clock Jump to Roll, Jordan, Roll. And if Coby wanted to override his confreres, he would simply sing out his own immemorial hymns. There was no set pattern to it; whoever sang, the others accompanied; whatever one man finished, another would take up, on the last long, expiring note, for his own. It was as close to true understanding as any three men can ever get. As one of the guards was heard to mutter many months later, still struggling with his confusion and dismay: “Them was the happiest damn guys pickin’ up trash I ever did meet.”

When Coby’s month of punishment ended, he returned, refreshed and forgiving, to the jurisdiction of Sergeant Pulaski, who studied him in silence for a long, long moment before asking, “Coby, you learned your lesson? You gonna be a good guy and make your own bed?” Before Coby could ever finish shaking his head, Sergeant Pulaski threw his head back, glaring at the heavens, and cried, “Oh, hell! O.K.! All right. I give up! You win! A couple million guys in the whole damn American Army, from North and South and East and West, and I have to draw you. So O.K., Clay. That’s the way God wants it, that’s the way He’s gonna have it. I’ll make your damn bed from now on!”

And he did. Every morning. Every single morning, an American sergeant made a private’s bed for him. It was the talk of the post, naturally, and not a day passed but what Pulaski got kidded and razzed and needled about this transmogrification of the established order. Sergeant Pulaski began to get mighty edgy, I can tell you.

Then one day Coby loomed over Pulaski and said, “You got a minute maybe, for me to ask you somethin’?”

“Come on, come on,” said Pulaski crossly. “Talk fast. I got my rear in a wringer.”

Coby scratched his head. “Well, I been figgerin’ out about this bedmakin’. ‘Tain’t fit for a man to make his own bed, like my maw says. But I been thinkin’ an’ dreamin’ an’ schemin’ an’ all, an’ I don’t see no right reason why a man cain’t make up someone else’s bed. Like you been doin’ for me! I figger my maw wouldn’t hardly mind if I did the same little thing for you.”

The kidding of Sergeant Pulaski stopped after that. For from then on, until that whole regiment of brave men was shipped overseas, while Sergeant Pulaski made Coby’s bed each morning, Coby— humming of dark glades and promised lands—made Pulaski’s.

Happy Was The Soldier! The Saturday Evening Post

Douglas MacArthur is a particularly good example of these controversial Americans. Born 130 years ago on January 26, MacArthur still inspires incredible devotion and harsh criticism. Any American who sparks such extreme opinion must represent something deep and valuable in the national character.

MacArthur had an extensive military career, to say the least. His military history began in 1903 when he graduated from West Point with honors. He served with distinction in the First World War, where he commanded the 84th Infantry Brigade. His soldiers were among the first to cross no-man’s land in the final advance into German-held territory.

By 1918 he was near the top ranks of the military, and was selected as the army chief of staff in 1930. The timing of this promotion was unfortunate due to the economics of the time and his efforts were mostly directed at preserving the military’s meager strength during the Great Depression. He retired from the US Army in 1937, only to be recalled to active duty in July 1941.

He is best known for his command of the Pacific Theater in World War II. After escaping from enemy encirclement in the Philippines in 1942, he directed the Allied forces that pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific, island by island. In 1945 he received the surrender of the Japanese Imperial forces and, until 1951, directed the allied occupation of Japan.

The Courting of Jean Faircloth
by Col. Sid Huff
September 8, 1951

When the Post published a series of articles about MacArthur in 1951, you would have been hard-pressed to find Americans not familiar with the man. He had commanded the first nine months of the Korean War on behalf of the United Nations forces. He had launched a decisive invasion on the Korean coast in the rear of North Korea’s army. His forces threw the communists back so decisively that a fearful Communist China launched a counterattack. President Truman ordered MacArthur to pull back American forces. MacArthur wanted to continue his advance and wage war in the style he knew best, without political complexities. He spoke out publicly against Truman’s decision, and Truman relieved him of command.

The Post published eight articles about MacArthur written by Col. Sid Huff, MacArthur’s aide for 15 years. The article presented a side of MacArthur not familiar to the American people. The series didn’t focus solely on his military leadership and war heroism, but also on his family, and the man “behind closed doors.”

In the first article from September 8, 1951, Huff talked about the General’s personal character. When asked by some if MacArthur was always the military man featured in the news and public, Huff responds,

“Actually the General is a very serious man who has been occupied for years with problems of grave import to America, and he so concentrates on what he is doing that there is little time left for any relaxation except the movies. He has no hobbies. He plays no games, such as golf or cards. He has no interest in ‘small talk.’ And he doesn’t enjoy meeting people merely for the sake of making new acquaintances. On the other hand, he has tremendous charm as well as a commanding, exciting personality; he can be tactful, gracious and even gallant, as the occasion commands, and he can and often does lean back in his favorite red-painted rocking chair and enjoys a real belly-laugh that makes the rafters ring.”

Huff describes MacArthur’s reaction to command being taken from him.

The General's Last Fight
by Col. Sid Huff
October 27, 1951

“Anybody who knows MacArthur soon realizes that he is sensitive to criticism. In a way, this sensitivity is his Achilles’ heal… MacArthur was widely criticized — much of the criticism arising from political motives — and the more he was criticized the harder he worked. He directed a masterful retirement in Korea and he seemed in public to be as unaffected by the attacks made on him personally as he had been earlier by the lavish praise he received when he was winning. But in the lonely watches of the night it hurt. It hurt him so keenly that his staff did everything possible to protect him. We even hid newspapers and magazines from him if they contained particularly unrestrained criticism…”

When notified of being relieved his military command, Huff says, MacArthur responded, “without much change of expression or demeanor. He didn’t like it, but it was an order.” MacArthur did not drag his feet. He tied up the loose ends and returned to the US.”

Even beyond the articles featured in The Post in 1951, MacArthur lived out his days rather quietly. Other than chairing the Board for the Remington Rand Corporation, he lived his final years in New York City. He died in Washington, DC in 1964.

MacArthur’s critics cannot be dismissed; they point to the general’s arrogance and self-absorption, his short-sighted preparations in the Philippines, his readiness to promote a war with China, and his political posturing in the ’40s and ’50s. They also compare MacArthur’s performance with those of Generals Eisenhower and Marshall — men who achieved greater things without his posturing or recklessness.

Still, MacArthur was a powerful figure to Americans during the war years. He became a symbol of America’s strength and determination. He inspired devotion and confidence, both of which proved valuable to our success in the World War. Any man who draws such lasting admiration from so many Americans must represent something great about our country.

In the 1977 Saturday Evening Post article “More Than A Star,” Gregory Peck described his role as the general in the movie, “MacArthur.”

“I came to this role with a grab bag full of prejudices… Now I’m full of admiration for the man. His faults were on such a grand scale they’re too obvious to discuss. They weren’t petty. There was no meanness in him and most of the things that MacArthur detractors say are based on idiosyncrasies — his long hair, his corncob pipe, his informal dress. It was kind of inverse snobbism — never wearing any medals. It was the theatricality of knowing less is more. When he stood with generals and admirals, he stood out in his simplicity. He made them all look silly.”

Read The Courting of Jean Faircloth, published on September 8, 1951 [PDF].

Read The General’s Last Fight, published on October 27, 1951 [PDF].

The Controversial Hero The Saturday Evening Post

He’s in the Army now. A seldom seen cover from December 1942 by John Atherton shows a faithful dog and a photo. From the uniform, we can guess where the master is. We hope he returns home soon–Spot is itching to go hunting.

The enlisted also included the ladies, as shown in a delightful cover from 1942 by an artist named Gilbert Bundy. A member of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) walking by the shop can’t help but notice the pretty little hat on the mannequin. Someday soon, she thinks, I’ll be able to wear pretty things again.

One of our most endearing covers of a soldier is from the prolific J.C. Leyendecker. This December 1917 cover shows a WWI soldier in Europe sharing a humble meal with a local native, the “native” being an irresistible little girl.

On the May 14, 1927, cover by artist E. M. Jackson, a sailor accomplished an important mission in the Orient—finding a genuine American hot dog!

Celebrating soldiers, sailors, and marines—the 1937 cover by John Sheridan captures all three, with a parade below in their honor. Just as it should be.

Norman Rockwell honored the military during the WWII years with several covers of the “every soldier” he named Willie Gillis. We’ve shown Willie’s military adventures before, but not this one from 1941. Rockwell’s famous private is home on leave, snuggled under the quilts and enjoying the luxury of sleeping late. The sign above the bed echoes our ardent wish for all our military men and women: Home Sweet Home.

Classic Covers: A Salute to Veterans The Saturday Evening Post