How to Explore the Career of General Patton

George Patton is among the most enigmatic figures in American history. Though respected for his military genius, which helped the Allies defeat Germany in World War II, he was despised by many who knew him. Why the love/hate relationship? Many reasons contributed to the complicated military icon's legend.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Study Patton's early career. His work as senior commander of the United States tank corps during World War I placed him on the fast track to military greatness. After all, anyone who had become familiar with tank strategy in 1918 was on the cutting edge of technology and in rare company.
2. Consider his early work between the World Wars improving U.S. tank performance and quick rise through the military establishment. Patton was involved in one of the most notorious moments in domestic military history as the Army Chief of Staff: the Bonus Army fiasco during the Depression, in which U.S. troops ran roughshod over veterans protesting a Senate decision to hold back on promised money that had been promised them.
3. Patton: Fast forward to World War II, during which "Old Blood and Guts" led highly successful operations in North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany. His work from 1943 to 1945 spearheaded the Allied drive to victory.
4. Consider that Patton took his troops around Paris to liberate Northern France, which allowed the Free French army to liberate the capital city on their own.
5. Understand that he was tremendously unpopular with his troops, who didn't appreciate his attention to detail and obedience. In one highly publicized episode at a military hospital in Sicily, Patton smacked a soldier who claimed battle fatigue, claiming the man was a coward.
6. Find out about how Patton returned to America a hero after the war, but was considered reckless and insubordinate by fellow military officers who believed he sacrificed lives unnecessarily.

Tips & Warnings

• Learn more about the fascinating life of George Patton, which ended in December 1945 after a car accident. For instance, a bullet passed through his upper thigh during World War I. Thereafter, he often dropped his pants at social gatherings to show the wound and proclaimed himself "The Half-Assed General." And did you know that Patton placed fifth in the pentathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden?
• Don't be so quick to proclaim Patton a great American hero. He didn't always hold American ideals such as equality near and dear to his heart. When asked about segregation in the tank corps, which remained the policy throughout World War II, he was quoted as replying, "Individual (African-Americans) were good soldiers, but I expressed at the time, and have never found the necessity to change it, that a colored soldier cannot think fast enough to fight in armor."