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Show CifisMip: All Glials Douglas MacArthur was bom Jan. 26, 1880, at an army post in Arkansas. His father was a distinguished career officer who traced his ancestry an-cestry to Scottish characters of ancient history. HIS MOTHER, who had a powerful influence on Douglas, was from an old Virginia family (Norfolk), whose sons had fought under George Washington and Robert E. Lee. MacArthur won all the medals-including the Medal of Honor, was twice wounded in world war I. He had set the all-time record for grades at West Point. He was an outstanding example of his profession, deeply dedicated to traditional tradi-tional and patriotic values-duty, values-duty, honor, country. HE RESHAPED the Point as commandant after world war I, was an able Chief of Staff of the Army in the thirties; thir-ties; probably his outstanding achievement was in rebuilding rebuild-ing Japan politically and economically after world war II, when he was Supreme Allied Commander in the Far East. His defense of the Philippines, Philip-pines, during the war accepted accept-ed as masterful, is now open to question. His career in Japan and Korea, where he was conducting military operations against the North Koreans who had attacked South Korea, ended on a controversial con-troversial note. (THE GENERALLY unknown un-known story is that MacArthur was warned through Allied intelligence that an advance to the borders of China, thus occupying North Korea, not just retaining South Korea, would bring on Chinese intervention. inter-vention. (MacArthur said he could take care of that. He really didn't believe it would happen. hap-pen. The Chinese intervened en masse and that resulted in a serious U.S. defeat. And Washington wasn't prepared to bomb China and get involved in-volved in a massive war.) YET ALL in all MacArthur was unquestionably one of America's greatest soldiers and a gifted speaker, leader and general. He was probably more widely respected in Asia than any American has ever been. He retired in Norfolk after President truman relieved him from his post of Supreme Commander and that city built a memorial to honor hin, the son of a famous Norfolk lady-Mary Pinkney Hardy. |