8
Loyalty

HE KNEW THEIR NAMES

General Matthew Bunker Ridgway, West Point class of 1917, had a habit of wearing a hand grenade on one shoulder strap of his jacket and a first-aid kit on the other. When asked if this was a form of showmanship, like General Patton’s pearl-handled pistols, Ridgway said no. In wartime, he explained, soldiers sometimes found themselves cornered and were able to blast their way out with a grenade. He believed in being ready for any emergency, at any time.

Matthew Ridgway was the son of Colonel Thomas Ridgway, a West Point graduate and artilleryman. Matthew was born on March 3, 1895, and lived on various military bases throughout his childhood. Though his father never pushed him toward a military career, Matthew Ridgway chose West Point because he wanted to make his father proud. He took the West Point entrance exam in May 1912 but failed the geometry section. He went home, studied math day and night for weeks, then retook the exam and passed with a 96 percent in geometry and algebra.

At West Point, he formed friendships that lasted throughout his life. He also suffered an injury that nearly ended his military career. He attempted to jump a hurdle on horseback but was thrown from the horse. He struck the wooden crossbar of the hurdle with his spine and landed on the ground in excruciating pain. He did not report the accident or seek medical attention for fear he might be medically discharged from West Point. The pain of that injury plagued him for the rest of his life.

During his first year at West Point, he developed a skill that would serve him well during World War II and the Korean War: the ability to memorize names. By the end of his first year, he knew every cadet at the Academy by name—all 750 of them.

He graduated around the middle of his class, fifty-sixth out of a class of 139 cadets. His class graduated just two weeks after the United States entered World War I. Ridgway wanted to be in the artillery like his father, and he hoped to go to France and see action. After spending a few months in Texas in the infantry, he was assigned to West Point as a Spanish language instructor and athletics manager. He recalled his disappointment:

To me this was the death knell of my military career. The last great war the world would ever see was drawing to an end and there would never be another. Once the Hun was beaten, the world would live in peace throughout my lifetime. And the soldier who had had no share in this great victory of good over evil would be ruined.1

Of course, there would be more wars for Matthew Ridgway to fight. Unfortunately, World War I, known as “the war to end all wars,” did not live up to its billing.

In 1925, Ridgway completed a course of officer’s training at Fort Benning, Georgia, then took command of a company in the Fifteenth Infantry in Tsientsin, China. In 1927, his fluency in Spanish took him to Central America as part of the US mission to Nicaragua, helping to supervise free elections. In 1930, he became a military advisor to the governor general of the Philippines. In 1937, he completed a two-year course at the army’s Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Promoted to major, he was mentored by Brigadier General George C. Marshall, a sign that the army recognized his leadership potential.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, igniting World War II in Europe. Later that month, Ridgway joined the War Plans Division of the War Department in Washington, DC. In August 1942, he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to command the new Eighty-Second Infantry Division. When the army converted the Eighty-Second into an airborne division, Ridgway earned his paratrooper wings and remained in command.

In early 1943, Major General Ridgway was the chief planner of the army’s first major nighttime airborne operation on the island of Sicily. The army launched the invasion on July 10 and continued to send infantrymen in by parachute and glider over the next few days. During one disastrous parachute drop on the night of July 11, confusion and miscommunication reigned. Allied antiaircraft gunners mistook Allied transport planes for Axis bombers. Many Allied planes were shot down by friendly fire. Others scattered to escape the flak. Many paratroopers were killed or landed far from their drop zones.

Ridgway had to report to General George S. Patton, commander of the Seventh Army, that he had contact with fewer than four hundred of the more than fifty-three hundred paratroopers who had jumped into Sicily that night. Though Ridgway later established command of his forces, he never forgot the anguish and uncertainty of that night.

The mission to take Sicily was ultimately successful. By the end of July, the Allies had taken control of the island. The Eighty-Second Airborne had paid a heavy toll, losing more than a dozen transport planes and many paratroopers. Ridgway was determined to learn the lessons of that mission.

Matthew Ridgway was fiercely loyal to his troops and devoted to their welfare. He once observed, “A commander must have far more concern for the welfare of his men than he has for his own safety. . . . All lives are equal on the battlefield, and a dead rifleman is as great a loss in the sight of God as a dead general. The dignity which attaches to the individual is the basis of Western civilization, and that fact should be remembered by every commander, platoon, or army.”2 He backed those words with action again and again during World War II and the Korean War. After his retirement, he vehemently opposed the wasteful losses of American soldiers in Vietnam.

Twice, as Allied war planners prepared to invade the Italian mainland, Ridgway saw disaster in the making. At considerable risk to his own career, he argued hard against both of those proposed operations.

The first involved a plan to send the Eighty-Second Airborne across the Volturno River to neutralize German artillery on the high hills beyond. Ridgway pored over contour maps and intelligence reports and discovered that his troops would be jumping into a flat, open plain between the river and the German-infested heights. The enemy would literally have the high ground from which to shoot down on his exposed troops. The plan was madness, and he told his superiors that if the plan went forward, the lives of many good soldiers would be thrown away. Fortunately, the planners heeded his warnings and called off the assault.

The second operation was even more ill-conceived than the first—and harder for Ridgway to stop. Code-named Operation Giant II, the plan called for an airborne coup de main, a swift attack using speed and surprise to achieve victory with a sudden blow. The Italian government had secretly agreed on September 3, 1943, to an armistice with the Allies, effective September 9. The agreement stipulated that the Allies would defend the Italian government and royal family from retribution by the German occupation. The Allied plan was to drop one regiment of Ridgway’s Eighty-Second Airborne Division on the northwest outskirts of Rome to support four Italian divisions in taking control of the Italian capital. As Ridgway studied the plan, he was aghast. Numerous unlikely conditions had to come together for the plan to work.

First, the paratrooper transports had to fly to Rome without fighter escorts (Rome was beyond fighter range). There was an excellent chance the paratroopers would be annihilated before they reached their target.

Second, six elite German divisions around Rome had to be caught completely off-guard. With so many unreliable Italian officials aware of the operation, there was almost no chance the Germans would not be tipped off.

Third, the paratroopers would arrive with few provisions and limited ammunition and would have to rely on the Italians for supplies and transportation—an iffy proposition at best.

Fourth, British field marshal Harold Alexander, the senior Allied officer in command, had promised Ridgway that ground troops would reinforce the paratroopers within three to five days to secure the liberation of Rome—a promise Ridgway flatly disbelieved. (In fact, Allied ground forces did not reach Rome until seven months later.)

Fifth, the enthusiastic citizens of Rome were supposed to rise up against the Germans and welcome the Americans as liberators. One of the planners of the mission, General Walter Bedell Smith, told Ridgway that the people of Rome would drop “kettles, bricks, and hot water on the Germans in the streets.”3 Ridgway considered that wishful thinking.

Though General Ridgway accepted chain of command and would not have defied an order, he knew the mission was suicidal, and he was desperate to change the minds of his superiors. Ridgway repeatedly argued against the mission with Field Marshal Alexander, General Smith, and the rest of Allied command. Alexander refused to abort the mission. Instead, he offered a compromise. Ridgway could send an American spy to Rome to investigate conditions on the ground.

General Ridgway’s artillery officer, Brigadier General Maxwell Taylor, volunteered to go to Rome for a secret meeting with Italy’s acting prime minister, Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio. If Taylor found the Italians could not keep their end of the bargain, he was to transmit a radio message containing the code word “innocuous.”

General Ridgway waited in Sicily, painfully aware that time was growing short as the September 9 deadline loomed. A man of deep faith, Ridgway prayed that the mission would be aborted. “In such moments,” he later wrote, “there has always been great comfort in the story of the anguish of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. And in all humbleness, without in any way seeking to compare His trials to mine, I have felt that if He could face with calmness of soul the great suffering He knew was to be His fate, then I surely could endure any lesser ordeal of the flesh or spirit that might be awaiting me.”4

In the last few hours before the planes were to take off, Ridgway went to the division chaplain and asked him to walk with him. They went out in the countryside, praying and talking together. When they returned, Ridgway’s anxiety about the mission was gone. He was at peace.

Maxwell Taylor arrived in Rome, disguised as a captured American airman, and met with Badoglio. He was thunderstruck by what the Italian leader told him. The Germans knew all about the planned invasion and had massed their forces around Rome. The Eighty-Second Airborne would be flying into a trap. Taylor got to a radio and transmitted messages over multiple channels, calling for the operation to be aborted. By the time the message reached the Eighty-Second Airborne, sixty-two transport planes were on the runways, carrying thousands of paratroopers, engines revving, preparing to take to the skies.

When General Ridgway heard that the mission had been called off, he sat down and wept tears of joy and relief. He later said that he was prouder of the one mission he helped to abort than he was of all the other missions he successfully completed. He knew those men would have flown off to certain death or capture. Through loyalty and persistence, he had saved them.

In May 1944, General Ridgway was in England, preparing his Eighty-Second Airborne Division for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. He had his mind made up to do something generals simply did not do. He was going to parachute into Normandy with his men. Allied command recommended he fly into Normandy with his division staff once the beachhead was secured. But Ridgway wouldn’t be talked out of it. Though he had never jumped into combat, he had parachuted enough that he was confident about going in with his soldiers.

In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, General Matthew Ridgway jumped out of a transport plane over northern France and landed in a pasture. By the dim moonlight, he saw something moving. Hoping it was one of his own men, he called out the challenge code word “flash.” A friendly soldier would answer, “Thunder!” But the shape in the pasture answered, “Mooo!” It was a cow—and Ridgway was relieved. If there was a cow in the pasture, then it wasn’t a minefield.

He turned a nearby apple orchard into his command post and proceeded to make contact with as many soldiers as he could. The first friendly face he saw was that of his aide, Don Faith, who had jumped right behind him. At first light, he made contact with Sergeant Casey, his bodyguard. Soon they could hear the crack of small-arms fire, near and far, from all directions.

Moving a quarter mile to the east, they came to the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, which the Germans had abandoned. Some of Ridgway’s troops had already taken it over. In the village, General Ridgway discovered his artillery commander, Andy March, who had come in by glider and had landed in the top of a tree. He was bruised but not badly hurt and was eager to fight.

During Ridgway’s first day in Normandy, he constantly moved from place to place, going wherever the fighting was hottest. After gathering as many paratroopers as he could find, he led an attack against a small German force that defended a causeway over the Merderet River. The Allies needed that causeway to cross deeper inland—and General Ridgway personally directed the fight, forcing the Germans to withdraw.

Throughout the day, Ridgway went from one firefight to another, directing and encouraging his battalion commanders as they took the fight to the German occupation force. From time to time, he would return to his command post at the apple orchard. A messenger always arrived within minutes to report a new hot spot. On and on he trudged.

At the end of his first day in Normandy, he slept in a ditch outside Sainte-Mère-Église, grabbing the first shut-eye he’d had in forty-eight hours. Through the night, German artillery shelled the village.

During his first thirty-six hours in Normandy, Ridgway had almost no contact with the vast majority of his paratroopers. During the drop, they had scattered like dandelion seeds over a wider area than had been planned. But in time, radio communication was restored, and Ridgway was able to direct the advance of his troops against the enemy.

Why did General Ridgway make the risky decision to parachute into Normandy with his men? His reply: “Loyalty to the unit must start at the top.” Ridgway believed that battles were won by men who felt bonded to one another by intense loyalty. A soldier’s confidence and courage were bolstered when he saw his commanding officer alongside him at the front, sharing the risks instead of waiting safely behind the lines. Matthew Ridgway was a soldier, and he believed he should be at the front as a matter of respect for “this brotherhood that exists between fighting men.”5

Ridgway later recalled an incident that took place during the fighting in Normandy. He had stopped at a farmhouse where one of his staff officers lay on a stretcher, being treated by a medic. The man had been shot in the bridge of his nose. Ridgway was offering encouragement to the wounded officer when a soldier on the next stretcher spoke up.

“Still sticking your neck out, eh, General?” the man said with a grin.

It was said with respect and admiration. The wounded man recognized the general as a fellow soldier. Ridgway never forgot that remark because “it represented the affection one combat soldier feels for another who has endured the same trials he has endured. For men who have shared combat together forever afterward have a common bond, no matter what their difference in rank may be.”6

General Ridgway played a key role in stopping the desperate German counteroffensive known as the Battle of the Bulge. As the German attacks increased in ferocity, Ridgway remained cool, calm, and confident. On Christmas Eve 1944, amid the worst days of the battle, Ridgway calmly told his formation commanders, “The situation is normal and completely satisfactory. The enemy has thrown in all his mobile reserves, and this is his last major offensive effort in this war. This Corps will halt that effort, then attack and smash him. . . . I want you to reflect that confidence to the subordinate commanders and staffs in all that you say and do.”7

He was constantly in motion, hurrying to the thick of the fighting to give direction and encouragement to his troops. Sometimes soldiers would be on the front lines in a foxhole, exchanging fire with the enemy—then realize that General Ridgway had jumped into the foxhole with them and was scanning the battlefield with his field glasses.

General Ridgway was loyal to the men he led, and they repaid his loyalty with respect, admiration, and trust.

In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. In December of that year, General Ridgway took command of the Eighth Army in Korea. The war had been raging for more than six months, yet the army was still in tactical retreat from North Korean and Communist Chinese forces. Ridgway found the Eighth Army in disarray. Soldiers were huddled in the snow without winter clothing. Food supplies were short. Morale was practically nonexistent, in part because the commanders were headquartered in the rear, safe and warm, having little contact with their troops.

On Christmas Day 1950, Ridgway went to Tokyo to meet with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, commander of the United Nations forces in Korea. Ridgway wanted to know how much latitude he had to shake up the Eighth Army and turn it into a fighting force. MacArthur replied, “Eighth Army is yours, Matt. Do what you think best.”

Ridgway began by reorganizing the command structure—and by getting rid of officers who were not trying to win the war. He attended a briefing at I Corps headquarters and listened to officers discussing their defensive plans and evacuation contingencies. Finally, Ridgway asked to be briefed on I Corps’s attack plans.

The corps operations officer replied, “Sir, we have no attack plans. We are withdrawing.”

Ridgway sacked him on the spot, then brought in officers who were focused on attacking the enemy and winning the war.

He fired officers who were not taking care of their troops. He found new officers to take their places, gave them full authority to do their jobs and take the fight to the enemy—and he held them strictly accountable for the results. Officers who did not do their jobs were bounced out. Officers who performed well received commendations.

In late January 1951, a revitalized Eighth Army under the command of General Ridgway launched a massive counteroffensive. By March 20, the Allies had pushed the North Koreans and Communist Chinese out of the south and had reached the thirty-eighth parallel, the border between North and South Korea.

Ridgway’s loyalty toward his troops was demonstrated by an incident that occurred soon after he took over as commander of the Eighth Army in Korea. He was standing on a snow-covered ridge looking down on a road where a platoon of marines trudged along. One marine with a heavy radio strapped to his back tripped and nearly fell. Ridgway saw that the laces on one of his boots were untied.

The commander of the Eighth Army leapt from that ridge, slid down the snowbank on his rear end, and came to a stop at the feet of the radioman. He knelt down in front of the marine and tied the man’s boot laces. General Ridgway never thought it was beneath him to perform an act of service for an enlisted man—even a marine.

By inspiring trust and lifting the morale of American armed forces in Korea, he reversed the momentum of the Korean War and changed the American mind-set from a defeatist, defensive way of thinking to one of confident offense. General Omar Bradley called Ridgway’s accomplishment in Korea “the greatest feat of personal leadership in the history of the Army.”8

In April 1951, President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of command of the United Nations forces in Korea and placed General Ridgway in charge. Ridgway also inherited MacArthur’s position as military governor of Japan, and he oversaw Japan’s return to sovereignty and independence on April 28, 1952.

Throughout his career, Matthew Ridgway built a reputation as a battlefield commander who led through loyalty. He was intolerant of incompetent officers, and he insisted on placing only the most dedicated and effective leaders in command of his units, because his soldiers deserved the best.

Just as he had learned the names of all his fellow West Point cadets during his first year at the Academy, Ridgway made a point of learning the names of all the soldiers he led. He literally knew the names of thousands and thousands of soldiers under his command, and they were always amazed and awed when their commander called them by name. His soldiers respected him but did not fear him. Rather, they wanted to please him out of love for a fellow combat soldier. Ridgway never used profane language. He spoke to his troops in a gentlemanly manner, even when administering discipline or correction.

He was always in the hottest part of the battle, often striding upright through a combat zone as bullets whizzed about him and artillery shells exploded on every side. He took what many would think was an incredibly risky gamble by parachuting into Normandy with his troops. When asked why he was so fearless in battle, he said it was because of his Christian faith. He believed that God had appointed a time for him to die and that there was nothing he could do to lengthen his life by a single second, nor was there anything the enemy could do to take his life from him before God’s appointed time. That belief made him fearless as he faced the enemy.

General Matthew B. Ridgway died in July 1993 of cardiac arrest at age ninety-eight in his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell eulogized Ridgway, saying, “No soldier ever performed his duty better than this man. No soldier ever upheld his honor better than this man. No soldier ever loved his country more than this man did. Every American soldier owes a debt to this great man.”9

General Ridgway earned the respect and trust of every soldier who served under him. He led them, he cared for them, he was loyal to them, and he knew their names.

Loyalty is a core value of the United States Army. The army’s definition of loyalty is “Bear true faith and allegiance to the US Constitution, the Army, your unit and other Soldiers. Bearing true faith and allegiance is a matter of believing in and devoting yourself to something or someone. A loyal Soldier is one who supports the leadership and stands up for fellow Soldiers. By wearing the uniform of the US Army you are expressing your loyalty. And by doing your share, you show your loyalty to your unit.”10

Unfortunately, all too many people in leadership, whether in the military or in civilian life, see loyalty as a one-way street. They demand loyalty from the people they lead but feel no obligation to demonstrate loyalty in return. General Ridgway viewed loyalty as a core virtue of his own life, a quality he demonstrated to the people he led and served. He expressed his loyalty by sharing the danger of combat with his soldiers, by parachuting in the dark with his soldiers, by making sure his soldiers’ lives were not wasted on ill-conceived missions, and even by knowing the names of his soldiers.

Loyalty is based on a commitment, not feelings. You can be loyal to a person you don’t even like. You are loyal to your troops and you take care of them not because you have a personal fondness for them but because they are your troops and you are committed to them.

Always stand up for your people. Always have their backs. If they are attacked or criticized, defend them. Always take care of your troops. That is what loyalty demands of you. After you defend them in public, you may have to confront them in private. Standing up for your people does not mean letting them get away with wrong behavior or character flaws. Loyalty isn’t about being popular; it is about doing what is ethically and morally best for your people.

Loyalty is closely allied with servanthood. Loyalty makes a person willing to get down on one knee to tie a boot lace. Loyalty is essential to team building, whether in the military, the business world, the religious world, the sports world, or anywhere else. Loyalty produces cohesion in your team. When your people know you are loyal to them, they will be empowered to work harder, persevere longer, and take bolder risks. Let me suggest a few ways to build loyalty in your team or within your organization.

1. Mentor your people and help them advance in their careers. Help them discover their talents and sharpen their skills. Show them you care about them and want them to succeed.

2. Keep your office door open. I learned this principle from the great baseball executive Bill Veeck. He didn’t just keep his door open—he took it off the hinges to make sure his people knew they could talk to him at any time. People will sense your loyalty to them when they know you are available to them.

3. Give credit to your people. Praise them publicly for their efforts and accomplishments. Affirm them and let them know you appreciate them.

4. Challenge your people and inspire them to greatness. Don’t let them settle for mediocrity. Encourage them and motivate them to achieve more than they think they are capable of. Show them you believe in them and you trust them to achieve great things.

5. Jump into the foxhole with them. Get out on the front lines with them. Roll up your sleeves and share the grunt work and risks with them. Earn their appreciation and gratitude by being there with them—and for them.

6. Be real. Talk to them, get to know them, share your values and beliefs with them, and share stories from your life that will help shape their understanding of who you are. Let them know you as a real person, not a figurehead. Be honest, be transparent, be authentic.

7. Know their names. Get to know your people, who they are, what they care about, what motivates them, what makes them tick. And the first step is to know their names. You will be amazed at what a difference it makes when you call your people by name.

General Matthew B. Ridgway did not merely live the West Point virtue of loyalty—he personified it. He was the gold standard of loyalty. His soldiers loved him and wanted to make him proud of them. They knew he cared for them.

He knew their names.