"I first met George S. Patton, Jr., before World War II when he was a lieutenant colonel at Fort Sill, and in North Africa, when he was a general, I saw him often. Almost every day he would head for the front, standing erect in his jeep, helmet and brass shining, a pistol on each hip, a siren blaring. For the return trip, either a light plane would pick him up or he would sit huddled, unrecognizable, in the jeep in his raincoat. His image with the troops was foremost with General Patton, and that meant always going forward, never backward. General Patton had two fetishes that to my mind did little for his image with the troops. First, he apparently loathed the olive drab wool cap that the soldier wore under his helmet for warmth and insisted that it be covered; woe be the soldier whom the general caught wearing the cap without the helmet. Second, he insisted that every soldier under his command always wear a necktie with shirt collar buttoned, even in combat action."
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Military leaders from the United StatesLegion of Honour recipientsSilver Star Medal recipientsUnited States Army peopleDistinguished Service Cross recipients
Original Language: English
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Sources
William Westmoreland, in his memoirs A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 21.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_S._Patton
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George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. (11 November 1885 – 21 December 1945) was a General in the United States Army, who commanded the U.S. Seventh Army in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of World War II, but is best known for his leadership of the U.S. Third Army in France and Germany following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1
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