As we reach the end of our journey, perhaps we should ask ourselves the meaning of the history we have traversed between 1775 and 1796. We have seen the emergence of George Washington as a thinking general and president. We have watched him deal with an egocentric ally—France—with its own agenda in the war. Above all we have acquired a new understanding of how and why average Americans fought—or failed to fight—in the long struggle. Year in, year out, they confirmed the profound truth of Washington’s conclusion: that self-interest far more than patriotism was the prime factor in persuading men to remain loyal as the years of war accumulated. This insight was crucial to understanding and recruiting a strong officer corps—the soul of every army. Ultimately this book describes the difficult, troubled birth of the US Army.
Nothing is more important than understanding this surprising truth. So many people, in and outside Congress, denigrated and suspected the regular army. The New England idea that virtue and its self-satisfactions comprised a far superior motive held a profound appeal for thousands of people. It justified the dark suspicions and irrational contempt of a regular army that pervaded Congress during Washington’s two terms as president.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, these emotions, expressed in different terms and for seemingly different reasons, have survived over the ensuing two centuries. One of the most memorable moments of my life was a conversation I had in 1965 with a new superintendent of West Point, Lieutenant General Donald V. Bennett. He invited me to his office to discuss the impact of the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam on the cadets. “I’ve decided to order the history department to help these kids—and not a few of our faculty—deal with the vituperation and insults that are flung at them every day,” he said. “Cadets can’t wear their uniforms on leave without getting insults flung in their faces. Officers and their wives get midnight phone calls calling them vile names. I’m ordering our historians to start telling our cadets that the regular army has never been popular. The praise the army received during World War II was an aberration.”
Those words and the reality they describe deepen the achievement of the men who founded the US Military Academy at West Point and gave it a philosophy that enabled their fragile creation to flourish and become an essential part of America’s history. Their motto, “Duty, Honor, Country,” played a huge role in this achievement. Those words put the US Army above politics and enabled its members to endure and even accept the eruptions of hostility that would have demoralized many men.
As I end our journey, my mind is rich with images of memorable soldiers, starting, of course, with George Washington and Nathanael Greene. After them comes a galaxy of men who have preserved the United States of America in both war and peace: Winfield Scott, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, John J. Pershing, Dwight Eisenhower, Matthew Ridgway. They march in ghostly but still meaningful procession through my mind and heart and (I hope) through the minds and hearts of my readers. They all owe their fame to George Washington’s search for a strategy of victory that would realize his vision of a nation of free men and women, shielded by an army prepared to look the enemy in the face.
Around these famous soldiers are the armies they created and led. I have a share in one of those regiments and battalions. My father fought in World War I, in the 312th Regiment of the 78th Division. He was in all the major battles. In the Argonne he was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant when all the officers in his company were killed or wounded. He never won a medal, but he once told me that some of the bravest men went undecorated. Many of them died trying to help a wounded buddy. On the wall of his bedroom, he had a framed copy of the poem “My Buddy.” It is a heartbreaking—and ennobling—commentary on the “band of brothers” that George Washington constantly urged his Continentals to become.
Who was it met me with a smile
And stayed beside me all the while
And helped me o’er each weary mile?
My buddy
Thus the men (and now women) of the US Army have continued their voyage through the centuries.