Why GEN Patton Was Awesome

Being something of a self-made expert on military stuff, I couldn’t resist the urge to commemorate the 66th anniversay of the death of General George S. Patton, Jr. I myself am a big fan of GEN Patton, putting him in my top 5 of all-time Awesome Dudes. He was arguably the best tactical commander our country ever produced as well.

Some interesting and little-known facts about the man:

• Patton was a native Californian – born in San Gabriel in 1885.
• He spent six years in military schools: one at VMI, and five at West Point.
• He competed in the first Modern Pentathalon in the 1912 Olympics, where Jim Thorpe took the gold.
• Patton often wrote poetry, mainly of a military nature.
• Patton was fluent in French, and could read in several other languages.
• Patton was commissioned in the Cavalry when we Cavalrymen still rode horses.
• He invented a new Cavalry saber and created an entire manual and training program for it.
• Patton participated in the punitive expidition into Mexico hunting Pancho Villa.

I personally think some of the interesting facts are awesome all by themselves, but I’ll collect the big stuff here to outline what makes Patton so damn awesome:

Patton was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his service in World War I. In this war, he championed and led a force of tanks, the first ever employed on the battlefield by American forces.

Patton led the Allied landing in North Africa, opening our participation in combat during World War II. He continued kicking ass across Africa and across to Sicily.

Patton, after the slapping incident and subsequent reassignment in Europe, led the U.S. Third Army out of the Normandy beachhead and across France, ultimately into Germany and Czechoslovakia. Notably, the Nazi Army rated Patton as the most dangerous leader the entire Allied force had, many times planning operations and strategy for German forces on what he alone was doing.

As part of that campaign, Patton and his 3rd Army relieved the siege of Allied forces in Bastogne. This involved pulling a total of six divisions out of the fight with German forces, repositioning them to maintain the line of advance, and committing three of them to an attack that ultimately won The Battle of the Bulge.

When told to limit his advance, Patton crossed the Rhine River into Nazi Germany with an entire division, calling it a ‘reconnaissance in force.’ Patton did in fact piss in the Rhine as he crossed, which merely doubles the awesome level of this accomplishment.

Patton was a tanker too. That alone makes him completely awesome.

According to Wikipedia, Patton and his Third Army managed to liberate 81,500 square miles of Europe and defeat 1,811,000-odd enemy, which given Allied losses in his command comes to a 13-to-1 ratio in his favor. He accomplished this in only 281 days.

Sadly, General Patton died of injuries sustained in a car accident near Mannheim. It was not the warrior’s death he had always wanted and dreamed of, but we was buried with his Soldiers in the American Cemetery in Luxembourg.

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Image from Wikipedia