douglas johnson house fire man in the hat

A quarter-century later, after spending many years at dirt-choked frontier duty, Arthur would receive a Medal of Honor for his Missionary Ridge feat. In November 1863 at Chattanooga, Tennessee, in what Manchester termed an “act of magnificent insubordination,” young MacArthur’s father, Arthur Jr., a stripling Union Army captain, screamed “On, Wisconsin!” as he led his 24th Regiment volunteers triumphantly up Missionary Ridge. It’s fair to say that the 1903 West Point graduate inherited his brass. Perhaps the earliest example came in 1914 when, during a standoff between the United States and Mexico, MacArthur led a covert reconnaissance deep into enemy territory outside Veracruz. Still, even his valor could generate controversy. Some Corregidor veterans later vilified him as “Dugout Doug,” but MacArthur was never one to dodge shot and shell. “Look what they have done to the garden,” he remarked with patrician aplomb as water splashed and clods of earth erupted around him. “You never hear the one that gets you.”Īs the next war was engulfing the United States and Japanese pilots were raiding Corregidor, MacArthur, walnut cane under one arm and a crushed, weathered campaign hat atop his head, stood by a hedge, coolly counting enemy fighters and bombers. “Don’t worry, Major,” Douglas MacArthur said as George Patton flinched. Once, near Saint-Mihiel, he and a young tank officer were standing close together as German rounds crumped closer and closer. Doughboys called him the “the fighting Dude,” and he seemed to enjoy a charmed life. MacArthur first achieved fame as a boy brigadier in the Great War. In short, wrote biographer William Manchester, “No more baffling, exasperating soldier ever wore a uniform.” Yet MacArthur’s heroics, displays of principle and magnetic aura were inevitably offset by pettiness, paranoia, and appalling vindictiveness. As viceroy of Japan, he bestowed forgiveness and introduced Dai Nippon to civil liberties and equal rights for women. Perhaps the most gifted battlefield soldier America ever produced, he orchestrated remarkable victories in France, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Korea while economizing on casualties. He received 13 awards for bravery, including the Medal of Honor. (Bettmann/Getty Images) DOUGLAS MACARTHUR was a paradox. The Superintendent: Within decades of his Mexican exploits, Douglas MacArthur later returned to West Point as Academy commander. Army officer lived up to his hair-raising heritage

For more great stories by Sears and others, click here to subscribe to American History. This story by David Sears was recently nominated for the 2016 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award. The Making of a Hero: Douglas MacArthur's Daring Mexican Heroics | HistoryNet Close

Douglas johnson house fire man in the hat