General Douglas MacArthur: Duty, Honor, Country

An excerpt from MacArthur's Thayer Award Acceptance Address at West Point.

"Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman."

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[Seraphimofextasy]

MacArthur was correct, Truman was wrong.

[Seraphimofextasy]

MacArthur was correct, Truman was wrong.

[snowman2149]

@Seraphimofextasy So you're saying is that the US should have nuked China and started a war with them? How ignorant are you. The second the US attacked China, they would have been distracted by the massive military force, and that would have given the Soviet Union the perfect chance to attack the US from the other side. You're crazy if you think the US could handle both superpowers at the same time.

[frankenbran85]

I used to be a general then I got cocky and didn't follow orders.

[znor17]

In WWI MacArthur led from the front.

[gurumagoo]

Dug-Out Doug was no hero; he was a sycophant and cold glory-hound. The words he had for the commanders he left behind in the Philipines are unforgivable. He more or less called them cowards for not forcing their men to fight to the death against the Japanese.

[doUcare4music]

Give me Liberty, or give me death..

[redpunk]

@baked4211 you call out a few tanks and use a little tear gas on penniless soldiers and suddenly you're the bad guy

[redpunk]

@Seraphimofextasy you're supposed to resign before complaining though

[Hperman09]

@Seraphimofextasy So Truman should accept MacArthut idea of nuking China during the Korean War? No's he's right, Mac is not.

[MrTomRogan]

@Seraphimofextasy

Truman was the President. His legal orders are all that matters. Civilian control over our military defines our greatness as a nation and our military's greatness as a force for good.

[baked4211]

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