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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Pulsation (Jul. 18 2025 23:56:42)
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quote:
estebanana
Richard,
Who did your dad like least, Patton or MacArthur?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I don't remember any Patton stories. I think my Dad may never even have met him. But he spent the first year of the Occupation of Japan on MacArthur's staff. We heard stories of dismal dinners while MacArthur regaled the captive guests with tales of his heroism and prowess, going all the way back to his starring role as pitcher on the West Point baseball team.
While I was in high school seventy years ago we lived on Bolling Air Force Base in Washington DC. I only ever overheard my parents arguing twice. This time they were warmly disputing whether they would call on MacArthur, by then relieved of command in Korea by President Truman, while we made our upcoming visit to New York City.
Dad said, "I won't go to kiss his ring in his throne room at the Waldorf Astoria."
My mother, citing mandatory military etiquette, said, "You know you have to."
In fact we went. MacArthur was charming. Well briefed as always, he knew I studied trumpet with the Principal of the National Symphony, and which sports I played. He complimented Mom on her charity work and her chairmanship of the Arlington Committee, whose members took turns representing the Air Force Chief of Staff at every Air Force funeral at the National Cemetery. Dad expressed tepid sympathy for one of MacArthur's long serving entourage of sycophants, who had fallen into disfavor upon his patron's exile.
In the elevator as we left Mom said, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"
Dad replied, "The old devil was always a great actor."
Years later, visiting Mom and Dad at Corpus Christi, I noticed a copy of Manchester's biography of MacArthur, "American Caesar" on the table between their armchairs. I went into the kitchen where Mom was supervising the preparation of dinner for my brother and me, our wives and children, and asked her what she thought of the book.
"You'll have to ask your father," she said. "He's the one reading it." I was a little surprised.
The next day Dad took my brother and me out fishing. The fish weren't biting. During a quiet spell I asked Dad about the book.
Dad responded, "He got most of what I know about pretty well right. Of course there were some things he didn't know about."
Dad must have known about, perhaps participated in MacArthur whitewashing the Emperor's role in WW II, but he never breathed a word of it. The world at large only heard of it after members of the wartime Imperial Household began to die off in the 1990s, and have their diaries come into the hands of journalists and historians.
After casting a few more times without getting a strike, Dad said grudgingly, breaking his habit of never swearing, "You have to admit, the son of a bitch was a great man."
RNJ
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