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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: Through a Glass, Darkly (Patton on the Cyclic Nature of War) THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY Poster Comment: At dinner, say, after grandly intoning Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" ("If I should die, think only this of me/There is some corner in a foreign field/That is forever England" [sic]), Georgie [Patton] might offer his fond prediction that he would die in a foreign land, since, as Napoleon said, the boundaries of an empire are marked by the graves of her soldiers. Beatrice [Patton's wife] would nod, the fire in the fireplace would crackle significantly, and the meal would resume as the girls furtively eyed their father in expectation of his next trick. If discussing reincarnation (one of his favorite topics), he would offer up as evidence pertinent bits of The Bhagavad Gita ("For sure is the death of him that is born, and sure the birth of him that is dead"), and his old standby, Revelations 3:12: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." To these he added the fifth stanza of Papa's [Patton's father] favorite poem, Wordsworth's "Intimations" ode: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,/The soul that rises with us, our life's Star,/Hath had elsewhere its setting/And cometh from afar." Clearly, Georgie said, Wordsworth shared his belief in reincarnation. (Patton, The Pattons: A Portrait of an American Family, 198) The best expression of his past lives appears in a lengthy poem written in 1922 . . . .Titled "Through a Glass Darkly," Patton demonstrates a powerful belief in God and alludes to earlier lives, the first of which may have been as a caveman. He even suggests that while Christ was on the cross Perhaps I stabbed our Savior (D'Este, Patton A Genius for War, 324) More stanzas from this poem come from Patton, The Pattons: A Portrait of an American Family (the first and third stanzas reproduced here were quoted in the movie 1970 film Patton, starring George C. Scott): Through the travail of the ages I have sinned and I have suffered So as through a glass and darkly (198-199) This most moving and complex of his poems concludes with the words: So forever in the future (D'Este, Patton A Genius for War, 324) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#1. To: Deasy (#0)
Patton was insane. Most great generals are. Stonewall Jackson was insane, too. And many people idealize the military.
And many people
idealize the military. I'm not sure I'd use the word
insane. They all have leadership qualities and the ability to hold men
together against any odds. But we do have to distinguish between the men of
days gone by and the cookie cutter, PC sputtering, quasi politicians who lead
the military today. Can you name one great general who fought in Bosnia/Serbia
when Klinton ordered the 78 day slaughter of the Serbs? Was General Powell a
great general during the 1st Gulf war? Does anyone leap out from Iraq?
Afghanistan? None do for me. My point is that comparing American fighting
generals from years gone by to this current bag of slop is to compare apples
and oranges. The same holds for the individual soldier. These kids today,
except for a few, aren't worth a dime. Like every other formally great
institution, our military is a laughing stock, manned mostly by misfits and
sociopaths. When they leave they become wonderful cops, another institution
that has become a joke. Today the PD gathers mental cases in government
approved doses: blacks, browns, males, females and other cross gendered
freaks all hired in the name of diversity. All that's needed for entrance is a
vicious streak, a complete lack of
empathy, a low IQ and a willingness to follow orders from an equally
unqualified superior.
Turtle... Like Jethro I would not agree with that. Patton came from a wealthy family, well placed socially, so there was no need to join the military to be "somebody". Like the true painters and composers of olde that would starve before they would work, Patton had the art of warfare as his obsession and lifetime mistress. That being the case, a military career was the only avenue to achieve what he wanted. Patton was a prophet that should have spoken to the world but he did not. He suffered and endured the likes of Eisenhower because the study and practice of warfare was his life.
Cyni, I don't know enough about Patton to discuss the specifics, but I can say this about him and the WWII generation that fought under him. They broke my generation of NYPD in when I entered in the job '68 (many, if not most, were Viet Nam vets themselves). I've never met a finer group of men in my life and I learned more from that early experience than in any other I've had subsequently. They hated the thoughts of taking a life, but none were better when it had to be done - and only when it had to be done. They would literally be rolling in their graves if they could see the current state of the NYPD and the military they once served in so nobly.
#9. To: Jethro Tull (#7)
Patton was an Army general, Eisenhower was an army paper shuffler. Many long years before WW2, Patton and Ike played poker, Ikes passion. Patton always won, which fits the difference between a paper shuffler and a military General.
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