What do you think of General George S. Patton?

http://www.pattonhq.com/unknown/chap08.html

this will give hopefully more clue about it…

@Emperor_Taiki:

what does being an adult male have to do with not slapping people. did you slap people when you were a kid

Well I suppose I should put some conditions on that statement, because self defense would obviously seem appropriate.  Well, when you are an adult there comes responsibility, respect, and refinement.  At least in professional matters - and slapping is directly counter to that.  Having a slap war at the bar while drunk as hell is another matter.  8-)

@aequitas:

this will give hopefully more clue about it…

Clue about what?  I read it and my opinion hasn’t changed.

_Repeated here is a summary of those facts:

Patton was known to be the type of man who would react violently when confronted with soldiers whom he thought to be cowards, yet everyone was “surprised” when he was true to his image.

Patton had received reports of “malingering” and had issued orders that offenders be dealt with at unit level. His orders were not followed.

One of the slapped individuals was “AWOL” at the time of the incident, yet that fact was never publicized.

The “scoop” used by Pearson was three months old and had been avoided by other, more discrete journalists.

Pearson used the story not for some virtuous, moral purpose, but to cover his own blunders._

1. “Everyone knew he was an a-hole anyway, so why get mad when he does a-holish things to people?”
2. His orders weren’t followed so he slapped the people distressed by the fighting and disease - not even the people who were screwing up the orders. Some how that makes it ok since his officers were inept.
3. He was AWOL…so what?  Get him out of there so he doesn’t ruin morale.  Corporal punishment isn’t necessary.
4. A reporter tried to run a story that no one else ran.  It was totally true, but the fact that he tried to run it months later means he’s an a-hole and Patton is forgiven.
5. We are talking about Patton’s blunders, not some reporter’s.

That “article” is just trying to find a scapegoat for Patton since the author doesn’t think he’s anything but a god on earth.

Not even to say anything about lack of citations - this could all be hearsay.  But if we were to go by it, he wasn’t even apologetic.  He didn’t understand why he was wrong.

Like I said, good general, crappy man.

I think Patton was trying out to be a new stooge to replace Curly and needed practice. He was the best we had in military leadership and to sum him up as a man by his approach to method acting is shortsighted. His persona was part of his way of dealing with mediocrity which he demanded from himself and all he commanded. Thomas Jefferson had slaves and made love to them, but nobody is gonna tear up the US constitution because of times when the people that helped make it had a few problems. No great leader remains free from blemishes on his record. It only proves he is human and not the Pope ( except the Pope was in the SS… so never mind).

@Imperious:

I think Patton was trying out to be a new stooge to replace Curly and needed practice. He was the best we had in military leadership and to sum him up as a man by his approach to method acting is shortsighted. His persona was part of his way of dealing with mediocrity which he demanded from himself and all he commanded. Thomas Jefferson had slaves and made love to them, but nobody is gonna tear up the US constitution because of times when the people that helped make it had a few problems. No great leader remains free from blemishes on his record. It only proves he is human and not the Pope ( except the Pope was in the SS… so never mind).

:lol:

@zerohour49:

3. He was AWOL…so what?  Get him out of there so he doesn’t ruin morale.  Corporal punishment isn’t necessary.

He was ruining moral because because he was sitting in the medical tent crying like a baby in there were wounded veterans were laying wounded because they were in combat. This guy gets a free pass because he was shell shocked… not wounded. So he had no reason to be in the med. tent! So what was 1 way to get this pussy to fight when he had nothing wrong with him… You smack it out of him!!! As in your picture I noticed that you have a child… So I bet you that you have spanked or slapped or some type of corperal punishment when your kid is behaving inappropiatly. and plus Patton needed every man he could use to win the war… and plus it worked corperal punishment fixed him to help.

Like I said…ruining morale, just get rid of him.  Sometimes people can’t take it.  The shame is enough I’m sure.

And no, I’ve never hit my son.  Never had to.

@Imperious:

I think Patton was trying out to be a new stooge to replace Curly and needed practice. He was the best we had in military leadership and to sum him up as a man by his approach to method acting is shortsighted. His persona was part of his way of dealing with mediocrity which he demanded from himself and all he commanded. Thomas Jefferson had slaves and made love to them, but nobody is gonna tear up the US constitution because of times when the people that helped make it had a few problems. No great leader remains free from blemishes on his record. It only proves he is human and not the Pope ( except the Pope was in the SS… so never mind).

Benedict XVI was in the SS?!  I thought he was in the Hitler Youth?

Oh yea Hitler youth… So its okay then.

Who said anything about it being “okay”?  I’m just knit picky about facts.  This is a WWII history thread, after all.

Though, if one must take a moral analysis, joining the Hitler Youth was mandatory for boys when they turned 14.  Also, every biographical info I’ve read or heard on the issue said he hated it because Nazi ideology clashed with his Catholic faith.  He was drafted into the Anti-Air Corp at 16.  I also heard something about him deserting.  To the best of my knowledge, he was certainly no hard core Nazi.

But I’m digressing.  Yes, Patton did have a squeaky voice.  :-D George C. Scott really made him look good.

14/16 year old boys hated everything.

@Upside-down_Turtle:

I also heard something about him deserting.

o, so the Pope was a Nazi and a coward :-D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYqRFirWeI&NR=1

@Imperious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYqRFirWeI&NR=1

:-D  For a second, the fingers almost looked like they synced with the music.  The original video is good, too.  He’s really into classical music, though I didn’t know he could actually play.

Any who, about Patton: he was a strange character.  Brilliant, but strange.  If only he didn’t try pulling a gun on someone in a hospital tent, he could have lead the D-Day invasion.

My opinion on Patton is based pretty much on his military merit.

Consider - if there were a politician running for election who supported almost all the issues you supported, wouldn’t you be willing to give him a lot of leeway on his personal life? At least, this is my taste when it comes to powerful figures. For example, I am willing to overlook Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions when I try to measure whether or not he was a successful president.

So before I move on, I guess I should discuss the character flaws I’m going to overlook.

Patton had, in my opinion, a large number of character deficits. He was often stubborn and arrogant, had difficulty compromising, and held others to a nearly impossible standard.

He believed that he was the reincarnation of ancient military figures. (For me, this is a deficit, make of it what you will)

He made numerous political blunders that had to be cleaned up, sometimes, according to some historians, accidentally divulging secret information.

Now, all the being said, let us consider his value to the American military:

Here was a man born for war. He trained his whole life, studying the tactics and strategy of military commanders long dead. He didn’t just learn it; he applied it. In this way, he was able to take into account the accumulated strategic wisdom of all of human history when he made command decisions.

Patton seemingly itched for war, wanted nothing more than to participate in great battles. Convinced that he had died gloriously in ancient wars, he had no qualms about dying heroically in the name of American conquest. Probably his greatest frustration was that World War II ended. Some of his comments indicate that he wanted to keep going at the end of the war, attacking the Soviets after German surrender.

In other words, Patton was an unstoppable killing machine.

Whatever else you might say about him, that is precisely the sort of man I would want in command of my military during wartime.

@swordsman3003, yes Patton was a among the most brilliant military commanders in WW2, but he was not god like….

Imo, it was only right that Eisenhower and/or other higher ranked officers reacted to some of the minor personal character mistakes that Patton did during his service in WW2.

This might been seen too harsh, (as of 2009), but don’t forget the psychological matters of WW2, regardless of it being Patton slapping a soldier, or the much more serous aspect of Holocaust…

@Subotai:

This might been seen too harsh, (as of 2009), but don’t forget the psychological matters of WW2, regardless of it being Patton slapping a soldier, or the much more serous aspect of Holocaust…

I don’t really get what you’re saying with this statement. The sentence isn’t grammatical and doesn’t seem to make a point. Are you saying that they should not have tolerated Patton’s personality because of the holocaust? I don’t get it.

To make it short, in WW1 there was no such thing as soldiers suffering PSTD or psychological/psychiatric panic during artillery attacks etc, but in the WW2 we had evolved a little further in our knowledge.

I should not mention the factors of deliberately targeting civilians, which was a major part of WW2, in a discussion of personal deficits and/or character traits of certain commanders and generals in WW2, that was my mistake, but my point is that while in WW1 a soldier panicking was nothing but a coward, but in WW2 this was a psychiatric disorder, hopefully short lasting, but Patton failed to know such issues, and while it’s debatable how serious the slapping incident was, I support the decisions to relieve Patton of service, at least for a while.

@Subotai:

To make it short, in WW1 there was no such thing as soldiers suffering PSTD or psychological/psychiatric panic during artillery attacks etc, but in the WW2 we had evolved a little further in our knowledge.

I should not mention the factors of deliberately targeting civilians, which was a major part of WW2, in a discussion of personal deficits and/or character traits of certain commanders and generals in WW2, that was my mistake, but my point is that while in WW1 a soldier panicking was nothing but a coward, but in WW2 this was a psychiatric disorder, hopefully short lasting, but Patton failed to know such issues, and while it’s debatable how serious the slapping incident was, I support the decisions to relieve Patton of service, at least for a while.

Maybe you’re right, but I consider the soldier slapping incident a character flaw that does not reflect upon his ability as a commander. Like how he thought he was reincarnated.

I don’t see that at all. With Patton the war ends sooner and less people die. Whats more importasnt: The dignity of a shell shocked soldier or a war ending a month sooner?

To tell Patton he cant finish off the war and save lives because he slaps people is ridiculous. Heck he can throw pies in FDR’s face all day or roll him down a steep cliff and race little gimp kids it matters not as long as the bottom line is achieved.

Ok, so let’s be diplomatic, can we agree that Patton deserved a reprimand and some kind of light punishment by Eisenhower et.al, but that Patton should be reinserted to his previous commanding post after 1-2 weeks?

Yes get the best man for the job back to work. If Monty slapped some bloke before he got in a few good licks against the Germans, Rommel would be looking at which hotel he wanted to stay in at Mosul before heading to Baku.