Waubonsee Community College

The generals, American military command from World War II to today, Thomas E. Ricks

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. [467]-532) and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The generals

bibliography

780480462

Thomas E. Ricks

American military command from World War II to today

An epic history of the decline of American military leadership from World War II to IraqHistory has been kinder to the American generals of World War II - Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley - than to the generals of the wars that followed. Is it merely nostalgia? Thomas E. Ricks answers the question definitively: No, it is not, in no small part because of a widening gulf between performance and accountability. During the Second World War, scores of American generals were relieved of command simply for not being good enough. Today, as one American colonial said bitterly during the Iraq war, "As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war." In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks's hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. -- Publisher description

Prologue: Captain William DePuy and the 90th Division in Normandy, summer 1944 -- pt. 1. World War II -- General George G. Marshall: the leader ; Dwight Eisenhower: how the Marshall system worked ; George Patton: the specialist ; Mark Clark: the man in the middle ; "Terrible Terry" Allen: conflict between Marshall and his protégés ; Eisenhower manages Montgomery ; Douglas MacArthur: the general as presidential aspirant ; William Simpson: the Marshall system and the new model American general -- pt. 2. The Korean War -- William Dean and Douglas MacArthur: two generals self-destruct ; Army generals fail at Chosin ; O.P. Smith succeeds at Chosin ; Ridgway turns the war around ; MacArthur's last stand ; The organization man's Army -- pt. 3. The Vietnam War -- Maxwell Taylor: architect of defeat ; William Westmoreland: the organization man in command ; William DuPuy: World War II-style generalship in Vietnam ; The collapse of generalship in the 1960s: At the top, In the field, In personnel policy ; Tet '68: the end of Westmoreland and the turning point of the war ; My Lai: General Koster's cover-up and General Peers's investigation ; The end of a war, the end of an Army -- pt. 4. Interwar -- DePuy's great rebuilding ; "How to teach judgment" -- pt. 5. Iraq and the hidden costs of rebuilding -- Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, and the empty triumph of the 1991 war ; The ground war: Schwarzkopf vs. Frederick Franks ; The post-Gulf War military ; Tommy R. Franks: two-time loser ; Ricardo Sanchez: over his head ; George Casey: trying but treading water ; David Petraeus: an outlier moves in, then leaves -- Epilogue: Restoring American military leadership