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“All real Americans love the sting of battle…” “We’re going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks…” “We are not holding… we are advancing…”
I first saw this movie in Atlanta shortly after its release in 1970. It was not my idea – it was my girlfriend’s at the time – she thought it would be a teaching lesson on what the “military mind” was like (admittedly, I felt no need to go, having just had an in-depth almost two-year tutorial in what that mind was like). No question, George C. Scott is a great actor. I’ve admired his performance as General Buck Turgidson in “Dr. Strangelove.” (“Come on, Mr. President, you’re not going to fault an entire program because of one little mistake”?) “Patton” commences with Scott, standing in front of an enormous American flag, with his swagger, riding boots and baton, making the above quoted statements during a time when I knew we had lost our first war, though it would take another five years to make it official.
After a brief time in Morocco, the scene shifts to “policing up” the battlefield at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. It had been a significant defeat for the Americans, who were poorly led, riding in tanks called “purple heart boxes” because one piece of shrapnel, and the gasoline explodes (shortly thereafter, the Americans shifted to tanks powered by diesel, a considerably less volatile means of propulsion). Karl Malden seemed typecast to play Omar Bradley, “the G.I.’s general,” as Ernie Pyle dubbed him. Bradley and Patton would have an odd couple relationship throughout the war: Patton’s swagger and bravado to Bradley’s self-effacing humility; each seemed to need the other. At the Kasserine battlefield both were 2-star generals.
In numerous ways Patton was an anachronism. He hated the 20th century, wrote poetry, believed in reincarnation. A VMI grad. He knows his history, at one point stopping the jeep from going to the present-day battlefield to look at the terrain where three Roman legions attacked and defeated the Carthaginians. “I was there,” he proclaimed. Preparing for battle, he read Rommel’s book. And there was the stupidity of standing in the middle of the street firing his 45 at a German dive bomber.
After victory in North Africa over the Axis forces, the movie follows the rest of Patton’s on again, off again career during the Second World War. There is the invasion of Sicily, and the rivalry with British Field Marshall Montgomery on who would take Messina first. Patton did, and at the cost of GI lives. Ike relieved him of his command and forced him to publicly apologize to his troops for having slapped a GI in the hospital who was suffering from shell shock. Patton had loudly proclaimed he was a yellow bas… Patton was used as a “decoy” for the D-Day invasion, assigned so that Hitler would think the American main thrust would be at Calais. Later he would play a vital role leading very real American troops with armor when they broke out of the St. Lo salient and quickly liberated Paris. He would also play the essential role in relieving the 101st Airborne when they were trapped at Bastogne, in Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, when the Germans counterattacked during the winter of 1944. After the war, he hated the Russians, even causing scene at diplomatic functions. Much like General Turgidson did in Dr. Strangelove. The movie did not cover his death, during the occupation of Germany, in December 1945, caused by a car wreck, but provided that slight hint, which has helped fuel conspiracy theories, that he had “served his purpose.”
Like a ball of yarn, the threads of my life have been entangled with Patton’s, even though he died the year before I was born. For an entire year, the tank that was named in his honor, the M 48A-3, was my home. Diesel-powered, for sure. The condition that so upset Patton, a soldier being “shell shocked,” now has a new name, familiar to many by its initials, PTSD. Dr. Robert J. Lifton, a Psychiatrist, was the driving force behind establishing PTSD as a recognized medical diagnosis. In his book, “Home from the War,” Dr. Lifton said that his work with Sp5 Dwight H. Johnson was instrumental in establishing that diagnosis. Sp5 Johnson was in my unit, the 1/69th Armor, and was the only crew member of five tanks that were caught in an ambush on the road to Dak To, in January 1968, who was neither killed nor wounded. For his actions that day, Sp5 Johnson was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Race relations again (appropriately) are featured in the news. As for Patton’s views, Wikipedia provides the following quote, from a letter that Patton had written home to his wife: “Individually they were good soldiers, but I expressed my belief at the time, and have never found the necessity of changing it, that a colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor.”
Sp5 Johnson, who died in 1971, in a robbery of a convenience store, was, as is the current expression, a person of color. As his mother said: “Sometimes I think Skip just grew tired of life and needed someone else to pull the trigger.”
In the entire movie, the only person of color was Patton’s orderly. 4-stars for the movie.
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Customer reviews
A winner without a doubt. Patton was as tough as hell and this picture portrayed him with sympathy and understanding. We owe him a great deal for how well he served our country. How well I remember the Second World War (I was a child [now 81], but my memory is intact and those days of the war [at home] are unforgettable. I had close family members who served our country and came back shell-shocked, bewildered, wounded, and forever damaged because of their war experiences; one of them permanently contracted malaria because he was separated from his unit and spent over two weeks of terror in dense jungle eluding the enemy, without food or water; he was was miraculously rescued, but forever changed from the man I first knew him to be. Another family member was a radio operator right in the thick of fierce and unrelenting jungle fighting for over three years, facing fearful odds against survival every minute he served. He survived as well. We are still, and were back then, proud of our military. As a former U.S. Navy WAVE I was proud to serve my country. We were a more united country back then, but despite all our current problems and hurdles we have to conquer and overcome, I still believe we are a united nation because we respect the ideals and principles upon which this nation was formed. We had military leaders like Patton and countless other brave military forces back then, as well as in other wars and conflicts, and we owe them all tremendous thanks for preserving our country despite the odds. To all who served and have given their lives for our country, I say God Bless all of you for your service and sacrifices. "Patton" is a classic film every American should see. The film actors are above reproach and their performances are touching and thrilling. Thanks, too, to the people who made this picture. They honored our military forces and forever preserved our country's history in an honorable and fitting manner.
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Rommel... You magnificent b****** I read your book!
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