May 31, 2005
Old soldiers
"There are no second acts in American life," wrote Scott Fitzgerald, before drinking himself to death in Hollywood, convinced that he had squandered his talent. But there are. "Old soldiers never die," said Douglas MacArthur, "they just fade away." MacArthur, the FDR antagonist, the man who ordered the Bonus Army attacks and eventually resigned from the Army had gotten his second act in World War II. But even a war hero could find himself constrained; Harry Truman removed him from his command after MacArthur repeatedly argued in favor of a nuclear strike on China. He tried for a third invention, positioning himself for the Republican Presidential nomination 1952 (he would eventually land on the ticket of Charles Lindbergh's ultra-right America First Party ticket, receiving only a few hundred votes). The last ten years of his life were quiet ones. But old soldiers don't always go out quietly; Col. David Hackworth, laid to rest today in Arlington National Cemetary, went with a lot of noise.
(more...)