MacArthur

The first film I had seen that had Douglas MacArthur was Operation Chromite, in which Liam Neeson played MacArthur, I got a little glimpse of the General.

Frankly, I am not an American and the film was produced before I was born, so I don't know how accurate that MacArthur (Gregory Peck) was portrayed in this 1977 MacArthur biographical war film.  But if they did faithfully represent the General MacArthur and Douglas MacArthur, I could admire his thoughts in war and see he as a great man, in some aspects anyway.

This film started at his last speech at the West Point, then began with his service in Philippine, Philippines Campaigns, little about New Guinea campaign, then Occupation of Japan and Korean War.

There was quite a few moments of his family life and his relationships with his subordinates, and significant screen time for political issues and his complaints to his men, especially the connection and collision between the commander-in-chief and the military commander, which was inevitably leading to his relief.

In the film, I got a sense that he wasn't a warmonger, the problem was the government dipped themselves in without knowing what's at stake, then withdrawing themselves without knowing the consequence.  It's all politics.

Vietnam, Korea, and current Middle East, just to name a few the problems that the United States had got themselves into and not only solving nothing but adding even more on top of existing issues.

We all knew Korea was divided as result of the 38 parallel line, perhaps if MacArthur got US officially at war with North Korea and Red China, even eventually Soviet, the world we knew today would be totally different, either communist lost or eradicated or America lost, and perhaps USA would become more global power than it is today, but we would never know.  What we know for sure and the fact is with the Korean DMZ, it's at the expense of North Korean's life till today.

Frankly, I am the person who detests wars, but withdraws like many US had done, that I could not even disdain further.

Besides the war, I was most impressed by his rule in the occupied Japan, although I didn't believe its right way to change a country for the better, in US and his definitions, I do believe there were a few great changes were done, such women's voting right, some reforms, approving Article 9.  However, the film didn't bring up other issues, such as the rapes and censorships.

Although the article seemed meaningless in these days, Japan has military, that's for sure, however you call it, it's armed forces.  Which seemed, once again by meddling of USA, it was encouraged to form such forces in order to help USA to deter communism.

Back to the war.

MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy the bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants... MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off, which I think speaks well of him --- Richard Nixon, 1985

This very much described what kind of person MacArthur was, he might hold a gun, but he would never point it at noncombatants intentionally.

In the film, you could clearly see intimacy between MacArthur and his second wife Jeannie, although it's out of scope of this film, I stumbled on the article of Elizabeth Cooper, this probably is one of a few questionable facts about him that I have got.

It's a good film.