Introduction
The United States military has seen numerous Generals and Commanders come and go. Notwithstanding their contributions in the military and the overall American foreign policy, some of these top leaders have been fired while some of them retired at the expiry of their terms of service. Nonetheless, these people form an integral part of the American military history and American heritage. General Douglas MacArthur is one such figure. A field marshal and five-star general, MacArthur reigned between the year 1880 and 1964. During this time, innumerable accolades describe the Arkansas born United States’ Chief of Army staff in the 1930 who also played a pivotal role in the Second World War’s Pacific theater. It has always been argued that Douglas MacArthur was the last among the prominent American icons to receive unreserved worship as a national hero. In fact, he broke the record earlier set by Robert E. Lee and George Armstrong for national admiration.[1] However, behind the largely positive image hid a long list of controversies. The achievements and awards masked MacArthur’s career in deep contention. For example, it is hard to tell whether Douglas MacArthur was an anachronism or an avatar, or who he was between a vainglorious mountebank and a smart strategist who judiciously calculated every single step he took.
Douglas MacArthur and his existence covers the mushrooming and inception of the American Army as a globally acknowledged fighting force. The history of the United States’ Army is, for the major part, MacArthur’s story.[2] Born to an American Civil War hero father, Douglas MacArthur steered the American Army and sat at the center of the events that characterized three monumental wars in the country’s history- World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Douglas MacArthur died right before the deployment of the American forces in Vietnam which marked the beginning of the Vietnam War. However, even after his demise, researchers and experts still reminiscently examine MacArthur’s strategic vision that greatly influenced the America’s foreign policy over the years. Briefly, he was the only one, among his peers, to foresee the America’s foreign policy’s focus drift away from Europe. For that, MacArthur is considered the American prophet with regards to the country’s destiny in the Pacific Rim.[3] Despite being an avid strategic planner, the grandiose vision of own prosperity and destiny drew an almost equal number of enemies and acolytes to MacArthur’s shed. Repeatedly spared from death in the battlefield, MacArthur’s soldiers codenamed him ‘Bullet Proof’ given his strong sense of mission and vision. He rarely failed.[4] However, when he finally failed, it happened in epic proportions. He willingly defied both civilian and military authorities in line with his personal principles and inborn trait of defiance. The trait later became one of his prime undoing and the eraser of his lifelong achievements in and out of the military. In some cases, it is challenging to compose a research on Douglas MacArthur with certainty and absoluteness given the near equal proportions of stain and accolades that characterizes his reign in the American military history throughout the decades. To this end, it is undoubtable that Douglas MacArthur was a great man, an avid commander who founded each of his missions on his forecasted stardom, yet the America was entirely lucky to survive through his epoch in the military. While he largely built the military, he destroyed it through some of his extreme strategies and proposals.