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November 09, 2005

Patton & The Butterfly Effect

I am watching, for the first time in life, the film 'Patton'. As you might imagine, I find myself falling in love with the guy as portrayed by George C. Scott.

Roughly in the middle of the film, the general visits the rear and passes through the medical tent. He cracks a joke with one injured soldier and pins a medal on the pillow of another who is severly wounded. Finally he finds a man who is uninjured crying his eyes out. Patton slaps him for cowardice and orders him to the front.

This incident nearly wrecked Patton's career and had he been relieved of duty, it is almost certain that the US invasion of Europe would have been significantly different. Patton was our son of a bitch, and through the Ardennes Offensive, produced one of the greatest military victories in history.

In Scott's portrayal of Patton, I sensed a man who understood his limits, and who personified a warrior's code. It was his ability to humble himself and his reverence for the accomplishments of those he led which speak of his greatness to me. There is more on Patton that I'm getting on the Tivo this week and I find myself rather astonished by the various psychological explanations of his behavior and ambition.

What I am confronting in this matter along the lines of what I've been speaking about vis a vis identity politics and the lost history of the Digital Divide is the lack of accountability that colors the perceptions of the public. Somewhere I wrote in this blog that much is probably attributed to War that was merely concurrent. And yet war determines much that non-combattants must live with, for better or worse. How soldiers fight and die is always absolute, but how we explain it, that's forever in flux.

And so it is amazing that an impolitic slap, like a butterfly's wing, might have sent history down another of the infinite forking garden paths. It's the characteristic slap we remember amidst the death of more easily explainable tens of thousands. That is a stunning thing to me.

Parallel to this and aside, I am pleased to be learning a great deal more about my childhood hero, Muhammad Ali. Larry Kolb's book is quite a revelation. It once again proves what the extraordinary individual can do.

Posted by mbowen at November 9, 2005 08:55 PM

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Comments

Interestingly, my husband's great uncle served under Patton (one of his officers) and he often said that everything about Scott's portrayal of Patton was pretty accurate, except that Patton kind of had a girly voice :)

Posted by: Caltechgirl [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 10, 2005 09:28 AM

I saw the movie years ago and hugely enjoyed it, though i did not admire patton as much as you do. What the movie demonstrates, and i tend to harp on this, is that everything has a disadvantage and nothing can have all good qualities and no bad qualities. Great military leaders probably cannot be the most sensitive people. by the same token, sensitive people may not be great military leaders. it was realizing this simple fact of life, that everything is a trade off and everything has a cost, that made me a conservative.

Posted by: Anita at November 10, 2005 09:35 AM

If you're enjoying the movie you will almost certainly enjoy the source bio, Ladislas Farago's Patton: Ordeal and Truimph. His collected personal papers are also a fascinating read; the then-military editor of the New York Times, Martin Blumenson, does an outstanding job of presenting them to people who may not be familiar with the times in which Patton lived. I can't recommend those books highly enough.

Posted by: Kevin at November 10, 2005 12:27 PM

I celebrated Memorial Day by reading a selection of Patton's sayings. One I quote at work quite frequently is: "A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future."

Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at November 10, 2005 06:20 PM