Douglas MacArthur

He was born at Little Rock Barracks in January 1880 to a captain who had won the Medal of Honor at Missionary Ridge and a Norfolk woman whose Confederate brothers had refused to come to her wedding. The family moved from post to post across the western Army, and a middle brother died of measles at three. MacArthur later wrote that he learned to ride and shoot before he could read. Until about eight his mother kept his hair in curls and dressed him in skirts. When he entered West Point in June 1899 she took a suite at Craney's Hotel overlooking the parade ground and stayed there — which, with his father's rank, made him a target for hazing. He graduated first in his class in 1903.

He scouted behind enemy lines at Veracruz in 1914 and was refused a Medal of Honor for it. In France he was chief of staff of the 42nd Division, took two Distinguished Service Crosses and seven Silver Stars, and made brigadier general at 38. From 1919 he was the youngest superintendent West Point had had in a century, and by 1930 Army chief of staff. In 1936 the Philippine Commonwealth made him a field marshal. Japan destroyed his air force on the ground at Clark Field on December 8, 1941. He came back through New Guinea and the Philippines, accepted Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945, then governed the country for five years, pushing through a new constitution, land reform, labor unions and votes for women. Inchon in September 1950 was his last stroke.

Three things sit badly. On July 28, 1932 he brought troops and tanks against the Bonus Army camp in Washington, went along with them although he was not commanding, and did it over Major Eisenhower's objection — the tear gas started fires and one death, and it made him a hero to the party's right. In 1934 he sued Drew Pearson for calling his handling of the veterans brutal, and settled quietly for 15,000 dollars when the journalists threatened to put his mistress Isabel Rosario Cooper on the stand. And on January 1, 1942, with his men starving on Bataan and singing about Dugout Doug, he accepted 500,000 dollars from President Quezon for prewar services. It stayed secret until a historian found it in 1979.

Truman relieved him on April 11, 1951. Eight days later he told Congress that old soldiers never die, they just fade away, borrowing the line from an old barracks ballad, and a country lately ready to fight over the firing gave him ticker tape. A 1948 run at the Republican nomination went nowhere. He took the chairmanship of Remington Rand, lived in the Waldorf, and told Kennedy in 1962 to avoid a land war in Asia and try a blockade. He died at Walter Reed on April 5, 1964, aged 84, of primary biliary cholangitis. Some 150,000 filed past the coffin at the Capitol. He asked to be buried in Norfolk, where his mother was born, and he is.

Douglas MacArthur's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Cadet Honor Code, formalized at West Point other
  Part of the curriculum overhaul he ran as superintendent 1922
• Constitution of Japan law
  Drafted under his occupation headquarters and still unamended 1947
• Inchon landing mission
  An amphibious gamble that reversed the Korean War in a week 1950
• Farewell address to Congress speech
  April 19, 1951 — old soldiers never die, they just fade away 1951
• Duty, Honor, Country speech
  Accepting the Sylvanus Thayer Award at West Point 1962
• Reminiscences book
  His memoir, published the year he died 1964

• June 11, 1903 aged 23 Graduates first in his West Point class
• 1914 aged ~34 Scouts behind the lines at Veracruz and is denied a Medal of Honor The board feared other staff officers would start ignoring local commanders.
• June 1919 aged 39 Becomes the youngest superintendent of West Point since 1817
• July 28, 1932 aged 52 Rides with the troops that clear the Bonus Army camp Tear gas canisters started the fires that caused the only death.
• March 12, 1942 aged 62 Leaves Corregidor by PT boat for Australia He had taken 500,000 dollars from President Quezon 10 weeks earlier.
• September 2, 1945 aged 65 Accepts the surrender of Japan
• September 1950 aged 70 Lands at Inchon and turns the Korean War around
• April 11, 1951 aged 71 Truman relieves him of command
• April 5, 1964 aged 84 Dies at Walter Reed after surgery, aged 84 Primary biliary cholangitis. He lay in state at the Capitol.

• Harry S. Truman 1884–1972
  33rd President who authorized the atomic bomb and implemented the Marshall Plan. relieved by
• Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890–1969
  34th President and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II. aide who argued against him
• Herbert Hoover 1874–1964
  Engineer and relief administrator whose presidency was consumed by the onset of the Great Depression. ordered the Bonus Army camp cleared
• George C. Marshall 1880–1959
  Army chief of staff who organized U.S. victory in World War II and later designed the Marshall Plan. Army chief of staff over him
• John F. Kennedy 1917–1963
  35th President whose brief tenure included the Cuban Missile Crisis and the launch of the Apollo program. sought his advice on Cuba and Vietnam
• Chester W. Nimitz 1885–1966
  Fleet admiral who directed U.S. naval strategy in the Pacific during World War II. commanded the Pacific naval war beside him