General Douglas Mac Arthur


Douglas MacArthur lived his entire life, from cradle to grave, in the United States Army. He spent his early years in remote sections of New Mexico, where his father, Arthur MacArthur Jr., commanded an infantry company charged with protecting settlers and railroad workers from the Indian "menace." As a teenager, Arthur had served with distinction in the Union Army, eventually earning the Congressional Medal of Honor for leading a courageous assault up Missionary Ridge in Tennessee. But he soon discovered that life in the post-Civil War U.S. Army held little of the glamour he knew during the war. These years were even harder for Douglas' mother, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur, whose upbringing as a proper Southern lady had done little to prepare her for raising a family on dusty western outposts. But seen through a boy's eyes, life at a place like Ft. Selden, New Mexico, was heady stuff. "My first memory was the sound of bugles," Douglas MacArthur recalled in his "Reminiscences." "It was here I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write -- indeed, almost before I could walk or talk." Even more importantly, by watching his father and listening to his mother, he learned that a MacArthur is always in charge. When Douglas was six, Captain MacArthur was assigned to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, where "Pinky," as his mother was known, could finally introduce him and his older brother Arthur to life back in "civilization." Three years later the family took another step in that direction when they moved to Washington, D.C., where Arthur took a post in the War Department. During these formative years, Douglas was able to spend time with his grandfather, Judge Arthur MacArthur, a man of considerable accomplishment and charm. As his grandfather entertained Washington's elite, Douglas learned another valuable lesson: a MacArthur is a scholar and a gentleman.

Douglas, who had always been an unremarkable student, first started to reveal his own intellectual gifts when his father was posted to San Antonio, Texas, in 1893. There he attended the West Texas Military Academy, thriving in an atmosphere which combined academics, religion, military discipline and Victorian social graces. By virtue of his excellent record there, his family's political connections and top scores on the qualifying exam, Douglas received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1898.




Douglas MacArthur entered West Point graduating four years later at the head of his class and setting the highest scholastic record at the academy in 25 years. His first assignment was in the Philippines, where his father had served as military governor just two years before. In 1904, he was promoted to first lieutenant and became his father's aide-de-camp in Japan. In 1906, MacArthur was appointed aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt and, in 1913, he was appointed to the general staff under President Woodrow Wilson. The next year, MacArthur took part in the Veracruz, Mexico, expedition. By the time America entered the European war in 1917, the talented and flamboyant MacArthur had reached the rank of major.

MacArthur helped organize the famed 42nd Infantry Division, better known as the "Rainbow Division." As a colonel, he served as the division's chief of staff. In August 1918, MacArthur was promoted to brigadier general and became commander of the Rainbow Division's 84th Infantry Brigade which he led in the St. Mihiel, Muese-Argonne and the Sedan offensives. His exploits during the war won him a number of citations and brought him to national prominence for the first time. Following the war, MacArthur became the superintendent at West Point, the youngest officer to ever hold that post; he remained there until 1922. Following a second tour in the Philippines, he returned to the United States in January 1925, was named commander of the 3rd Corps, and then returned to the Philippines where he served as department commander.