Silver Star Medal Recipients

"The September restrictions that we had applied to operations of the Third Army were more confining than those with which we later jacketed Hodges. To a man who abhorred defensive warfare with the scorn of George Patton, the shutdown came as a bitter and crushing blow. Until he died Patton never recanted on his contention that had priority in supply been given him instead of Monty and Hodges, Third Army could have broken through the Star defenses to the Rhine. At the same time Monty's proposal that Third Army be halted permanently on the Moselle while he tramped on to Berlin did nothing to appease Patton's unconcealed dislike for the British field marshal. Complete inactivity, however, proved too much to expect of Patton."

"I still could not accustom myself, however, to the vulgarity with which Patton skinned offenders for relatively minor infractions in discipline. Patton believed that profanity was the most convincing medium of communication to his troops. But while some chuckled delightedly over the famed expletives he employed with startling originality, the majority, it seemed to me, were more often shocked and offended. At times I felt like Patton, however successful he was as a corps commander, had not learned to command himself. The techniques of command vary, of course, with the personality of the commander. While some men prefer to lead by suggestion and example and other methods, Patton chose to drive his subordinates by bombast and by threats. Those mannerisms achieved spectacular results. But they were not calculated to win affection among his officers or men."

""Gentlemen," he said, looking about the dimly lighted room, "tomorrow we attack. If we are not victorious, let no one come back alive." With that, George excused himself and retired alone to his room to pray. These contradictions in Patton's character continued to bewilder his staff. For while he was profane, he was also reverent. And while he strutted imperiously as a commander, he knelt humbly before his God. And while that last appeal for victory even at the price of death was looked upon as a hammy gesture by his corps staff, it helped to make it more clearly apparent to them that to Patton war was a holy crusade."

"Like Eisenhower, Patton ordinarily messed with a group of inmates from his headquarters. Breakfast was spirited and talkative. Patton picked up the GI holster in which I carried my 30-year-old Colt .45. "Hell, Brad," he said, "what you need is a social gun. You can't carry that cannon with you everywhere you go.""

"Precisely at 7 Patton boomed in to breakfast. His vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and good humor. He was at once stimulating and overbearing. George was a magnificent soldier."

"I have attempted to write of my long association with George Patton as fairly and as honestly as I could. General Patton was one of my staunchest friends and the most unhesitatingly loyal of my commanders. He was a magnificent soldier, one whom the American people can admire not only as a great commander but as a unique and remarkable man. In recollecting our experiences together, I may offend those who prefer to remember Patton not as a human being but as a heroic-size statue in a public park. I prefer to remember Patton as a man, as a man with all the frailties and faults of a human being, as a man whose greatness is therefore all the more of a triumph."

"[Patton was] arrogant, publicity-seeking and personally flawed, but ... among the greatest generals of the war."

"King George VI of the United Kingdom: "How many men have you killed in war, General Patton?" Patton: "Seven, sir.". Dwight D. Eisenhower: "How many did you say, General Patton?" Patton: "Three, sir." Eisenhower: "Ok, George, we'll let you get away with that.""

"For Patton, leadership was never simply about making plans and giving orders, it was about transforming oneself into a symbol."

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure I'm what you would have called a real leader. As an Army master sergeant, I certainly had the rank and the authority to tell soldiers what to do, but that alone didn't make me a leader. It takes more than stripes and silver bars to be a leader. There's one thing I do know for certain. You can't be a leader without respect. That's actually how you can tell whether or not a leader is any good. You can tell by how well respected he is by others. General George S. Patton was unquestionably a good leader. He was so good that even his enemies respected him. The same could be said about his principal adversary, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, another leader respected by the soldiers of both camps. Now if that's not leadership, then I don't know what is."

"I don't think he should have been characterized as the insane show-off that 20th Century-Fox wanted to make him- which I resisted down the line. He had many admirable qualities: duty, honor, country and so forth instilled in those men. The most admirable quality about him was- I have to be so precise in wording this- that he disapproved of taking casualties. Almost fanatical disapproval, and coupled with that, his intense desire to inflict casualties on the enemy."

"In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience, but it brought rich dividends. Even at that time, the American generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the tactical handling of their forces, although we had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare."

"I went home and stayed at Green Meadows. A couple of days later we all went up to Boston and the aircraft landed. I'll never forget it. My dad got out of the aircraft and he really looked super; he was fifty-nine years old at the time. WIth him in the aircraft were a couple of division commanders, including John W. O'Daniel, who had lost his son in the Normandy invasion and who later became my commanding general at the Infantry School at Fort Benning when I went through the basic officers course in 1946. Also aboard was Leon Johnson [USAF], who had been awarded the Medal of Honor for the Ploesti Raid, followed by eight or nine noncoms, not one of whom was wearing less than a Silver Star. All of this was followed by a ticker-tape parade through Boston. That evening my father spoke at the Shell on the Esplanade in Boston. We came home that night quite late and the next morning he came upstairs and woke me up and said we were going for breakfast. I ate breakfast with him and then I got on a train and went back to West Point. It was the last time I ever saw him."

"The end had finally come for our four all-stars, the greatest group of soldiers to ever serve together in the United States Army, maybe any army, any time. Of the four, George Patton was probably the most gifted pure warrior, although Douglas MacArthur would undoubtedly dispute this claim. Unlike the others, Patton truly loved war, believed he had been fighting them since the time of Caesar, and likely died happily thinking he would be fighting them long into the future. In between, Patton spent his life preparing to fight, and was ready when America needed him, almost the perfect combat general to wage all-out warfare- his mask of command sufficiently awe-inspiring and magnetic enough to induce hundreds of thousands to self-organize around him and become his terrible swift sword. But like some other great actors, his signature role left him typecast and the future held no parts for him. George Patton and the Cold War's gridlock were antithetical, and should he have somehow drifted into politics, a logical enough alliance with Joseph McCarthy is not something America needed. Better he exited the stage when he did."

"Lincoln's remark after they got after Grant comes to mind when I think of Patton – 'I can't spare this man, he fights'."

"If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it. The U.S. Army still has to learn that. The British understand it. Patton understood it. I always admired Patton. Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes."

"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do."

"An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!"

"There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily. All because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did."

"All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling". That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come."

"Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen."

"Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base."

"Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight."

"Son, only a pimp in a Louisiana whore-house carries pearl-handled revolvers. These are ivory."

"Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. Since then sonofabitches all over the globe have been guarding their flanks. I don't agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I'll be cutting the bastard's throat."

"Stanzas 4 and 5 of "Absolute War", as quoted in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson, p. 492: For in war just as in loving You must keep on shoving Or you'll never get your reward. For if you are dilatory In the search for lust or glory You are up shitcreek and that's the truth, Oh, Lord. So let us do real fighting, Boring in and gouging, biting. Let's take a chance now that we have the ball. Let's forget those fine firm bases In the dreary shell-raked spaces, Let's shoot the works and win! Yes win it all."

"Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange If we accept them we will never win. Since being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic We will get a bloody nose and that's a sin."

"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."

"Few men are killed by bayonets, but many are scared by them. Having the bayonet fixed makes our men want to close. Only the threat to close will defeat a determined enemy."

"I find that moral courage is the most valuable and most usually absent characteristic."

"It is rather interesting how you get used to death. I have had to go to inspect the troops in which case you run a very good chance — or I should say a reasonable chance — of being bombed or shot at from the air, and shelled or shot at from the ground. I had the same experience every day which is for the first half-hour the palms of my hands sweat and I feel depressed. Then, if one hits near you, it seems to break the spell and you don't notice them any more. Going back in the evening over the same ground and at a time when the shelling and bombing are usually heavier, you become so used to it you never think about it."

"The more I see of Arabs the less I think of them. By having studied them a good deal I have found out the trouble. They are the mixture of all the bad races on earth, and they get worse from west to east, because the eastern ones have had more crosses."

"The publicity I have been getting, a good deal of which is untrue, and the rest of it ill considered, has done me more harm than good. The only way you get on in this profession is to have the reputation of doing what you are told as thoroughly as possible. So far I have been able to accomplish that, and I believe I have gotten quite a reputation from not kicking at peculiar assignments."

"I finished the Koran – a good book and interesting."

"Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy."

"Of all the many talks I had in Washington, none gave me such pleasure as that with you. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, you are about my oldest friend. In the second place, your self-assurance and to me, at least, demonstrated ability, give me a great feeling of confidence about the future … and I have the utmost confidence that through your efforts we will eventually beat the hell out of those bastards — "You name them; I'll shoot them!""

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."

"So as through a glass, and darkly The age long strife I see Where I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a fighter, But to die again, once more."

"I have fought with gun and cutlass On the red and slippery deck With all Hell aflame within me And a rope around my neck."

"I have sinned and I have suffered, Played the hero and the knave; Fought for belly, shame, or country, And for each have found a grave. I cannot name my battles For the visions are not clear, Yet, I see the twisted faces And I feel the rending spear."

"Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime."

"I wonder if I could have been here before as I drive up the Roman road the Theater seems familiar — perhaps I headed a legion up that same white road... I passed a chateau in ruins which I possibly helped escalade in the middle ages. There is no proof nor yet any denial. We were, We are, and we will be."

"He was tough. War is tough. Leaders have to be tough. He drove his army hard, yes, and he made many enemies among colleagues and subordinates, but he also produced results. He was indeed arrogant, but sometimes a good leader has to be larger than life. … But the fact is: again typically, Patton's admirers are no more specific in their praise than are his disparagers in their criticism."

"Won't that old bastard ever get enough of war? He wanted to fight in the Pacific, and I wish to God they'd let him go."

"Because of Hale's condition, the doctor gave him a medical order stating that he did not have to wear a necktie. (Later, Hale was stopped by an irate General Patton who chewed him out for not wearing his necktie. Hale triumphantly produced his slip of paper, leaving Patton for once speechless.)"

"MARKET-GARDEN was a high risk operation that failed. It was undertaken at the expense of two possible offensives that had to be postponed because Eisenhower diverted supplies to MARKET-GARDEN. The first was the Canadian attack on the approaches to Antwerp, Europe's greatest port and essential to the support of any Allied offensive across the Rhine. In the event, Antwerp was not opened and operating until the end of 1944, which meant that through the fall the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) fought with inadequate supplies. The second postponed offensive was that of Patton's Third Army, south of the Ardennes. Patton believed that if he had gotten the supplies that Monty got for MARKET-GARDEN, he could have crossed the Rhine that fall and then had an unopposed path to Berlin. That seems doubtful, but we will never know because it was never tried."

"Valley Forge, Custer's ranks, San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks, And the Army went rolling along Minutemen, from the start, Always fighting from the heart, And the Army keeps rolling along."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, because I am the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley."

"Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself."