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A good friend who's also a West Point alumnus recently sent a note reminding me General Douglas MacArthur ended his public career 51 years ago. Civilian voices have long argued about the general's motives; mainly his use of politics to influence career and public opinion. Today, fewer recognize the General's name or his role in shaping events unless of course they're military historians. His valedictory delivered in West Point's cavernous mess hall was the last performance of one of the nation's greatest actors. He had prepared meticulously memorizing his entire address of more than 2,000 words. That day he arrived at the academy gaunt from the flu. His hands, veined as spider webs, trembled slightly. He occasionally holstered them in his jacket pockets to hide the palsy. MacArthur was 82.
His voice thundered in the hall as he addressed the cadets: "Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn." Speaking without notes he deliberately created an impression he was no longer speaking from his head, but from his deepest center. "Yours is the profession of arms-the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory..."
In language that admirers and detractors always describe as MacArthuresque, he evoked West Point's great heritage: "From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab would rise up from their white crosses thundering those magic words: duty, honor, country."
In the quiescent hall in the shadow of Storm King Mountain high above the Hudson, cadets could hear a pin drop. MacArthur forged toward his conclusion: "The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. Today marks my final roll call with you...but I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, the corps, and the corps."
The cadets, most with goose bumps, filed out onto the plain silently armed with the general's lingering manifesto. If you lose, the nation could be destroyed.
In our current time and place the final rhetoric of the address is antiquarian, better suited to the days of Rudyard Kipling. But there is something intoxicating about his final thoughts, possessing a martial, echoing rhythm like those in MacArthur's dreams of canon crashing.
51 years hence it's possible this enigmatic warrior from another time is deemed irrelevant except for hallowed settings like West Point. Still, there is comfort for those of all ages who celebrate the lingering notion that the high road is the best road; the harder right trumps the easier wrong.
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