Douglas MacArthur

“ The peoples of Asia hung their opportunity in the war just past to throw off the shackles of colonialism and now see the dawn of new opportunity, a here to for unfelt dignity and the self respect of political freedom. Mustering half of the Earth's population and 60% of its natural resources these peoples are rapidly consolidating a new force both moral and material, with which to raise the living standard and erect adaptations of the design on modern progress to their own distinct cultural environments. ”

“ The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training—sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind. ”

“ If a potential enemy can divide his strength on two fronts, it is for us to counter his efforts. The Communist threat is a global one. Yet, its successful advance in one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector. You cannot appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its advance in Europe. ”

“ The Japanese people, since the war, has undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history with a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and mark capacity to understand, they have from the ashes left in war's work, erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the primacy of individual liberty and personal dignity, and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice. ”

“ I therefore recommend strongly that as soon as new regime is in control in Korea (whether or not it be of interim character) we use all our influence to persuade it (1) to release and return to Japan all repeat all Japanese fishermen hostages (including those who have not completed their sentences) who have suffered so cruelly from Rhee's uncivilized and oppressive acts and (2) to cease practice of seizing Japanese fishing vessels on high seas. ”

“ "Men, since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful.
"Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. ”

“ They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. ”

“ I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. ”

“ You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. ”

“ We could hold in Korea by constant maneuver and at an approximate area where our supply-line advantages were in balance with the supply-line disadvantages of the enemy, but we could hope at best for only an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition upon our forces if the enemy utilized his full military potential.
I have constantly called for the new political decisions essential to a solution.
Efforts have been made to distort my position. It has been said in effect that I was a warmonger. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. ”

“ They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high ”

“ The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind—the chapter of the space age. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution. ”

“ In war there is no substitute for victory.
There are some who for varying reasons would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. ”

“ Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all-out war with China. Others, to avoid Soviet intervention. Neither explanation seems valid, for China is already engaging with the maximum power it can commit, and the Soviet will not necessarily mesh its actions with our moves. Like a cobra, any new enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military or other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis. ”

“ Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule. ”

“ That it may be counted upon to wheel a profoundly beneficial influence over the course of events in Asia is a tested by the magnificent manner in which the Japanese people have met the recent challenge of war, unrest, and confusion surrounding them from the outside and Czech communism within their own frontiers without the slightest slacking in the forward progress. ”

“ We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier. We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us ”

“ I have from the beginning believed that the Chinese Communist support of the North Koreans was the dominant one, their interest are present and parallel with those of the Soviet. But I believe that the aggressiveness recently displayed not only in Korea, but also in Indochina and Tibet and pointing potentially toward the south reflects predominantly the same lust for the expansion of power which has animated every would-be conquerer since the beginning of time. ”

“ And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight. ”

“ Whether one adheres to the concept of colonization or not, this is the direction of Asian progress and it may not be stopped. It is a corollary of the shift of the world economic frontiers, as the whole epicenter of world affairs rotates back toward the area once it started. In this situation it becomes vital that our own country orient it's policies in consonance with this basic evolutionary condition rather than to pursue a course blind to reality that the colonial era is now past and the Asian peoples covet their right to shape their own free destiny. ”

“ While Asia is commonly referred to as the gateway to Europe, it is no less true that Europe is the gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of the one cannot fail to have its impact upon the other.
There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts, that we cannot divide our effort. ”

“ Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent ”

“ While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old. ”

“ As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?" and when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?" ”

“ This has produced a new and dominant power in Asia, which for its own purposes is allied with Soviet Russia, but which in its own concepts and methods has become aggressively imperialistic with a lust for expansion and increase power normal to this type of imperialism. There is little of the ideological concept either one way or another in the Chinese mecca. The standard live is so low and the capital accumulation has been so throughly dissipated by war that the masses are desperate and avid to follow any leadership which promise the alleviation of local stringencies. ”

“ I sent all for of our occupation division to the Korean battle front without the slightest qualms as to the effect the resulting power vacuum upon Japan, the results fully justified my faith. I know of no nation more serene, orderly, and industrious nor in which higher hopes can be evertained for future constructive service in the advance of the human race. ”

“ Before one may objectively assess the situation now existing there, he must comprehend something of Asia's past and the revolutionary changes which have marked her cost up to the present. Long exploited by the so called colonial powers, with little opportunity to achieve any degree of social justice, individual dignity, or a higher standard of life such as guided our own noble administration in the Philippines. ”

“ At the turn of the century, under the regime of Chancellor Qing, efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the start of nationalist urge, this was further and more successfully developed under the leadership of Chiang Kaishek, but has been brought to its greatest fruition under the present regime to the point that it has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant agressive tendencies. Through these past 50 years the Chinese people have thus become militarized in their concept and in their ideals. ”

“ What the people strive for is the opportunity for a little more food in their stomachs, a little better clothing on their backs, a little firmer roof over their heads and the realization of the normal nationalist urge for political freedom. ”

“ China up to 50 years ago was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other. The war making tendency was almost non-existent as they still followed the tenants of the Confucian ideal of pacifist culture. ”

“ Any predatory attack from Asia, must be an amphibious effort, no amphibious force can be successful without control of the sea lanes and the air over those lanes in its avenue of advance. With naval and air supremacy and modest ground elements to defend bases, any major attack from continental Asia toward us, or our friends pacific would be doomed to failure. ”

“ Under such conditions the pacific no longer represents manicing avenues of approach for a prospective invader it assumes instead the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake, our line of defence is a natural one and can be maintained with a minimum of military effort and expense. ”

“ While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision, from a military standpoint, proved a sound one. As I say, it proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces. ”

“ Of our former ward the Philippines, we can look forward in confidence that the existing unrest will be corrected, a strong and healthy nation will grow in the longer aftermath of was terrible destructiveness, we must be patient, and understanding, and never fail them as in our hour of need they did not fail us. ”

“ I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride - humility in the wake of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me, pride in the reflection that this home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised. ”