October 20

When the American forces were forced to leave the Philippines during World War II, Douglas MacArthur[i] had promised the people of that nation that he would return. On the 20th in 1944, MacArthur fulfilled that promise by returning to Leyte Island. I don’t mean to disparage MacArthur’s memory but I wonder whether his promise to return was based on any reason other than his duty as a Five Star General. In July of 1941, President Truman had recalled MacArthur to active duty. Truman made MacArthur Allied Commander in the Philippines. Do you think that MacArthur spent his days just been sitting around waiting for Truman to call. No! He had another job already. The Philippines’ President Manuel L. Quezon[ii] had made him Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. Nevertheless, MacArthur took Truman’s job. When MacArthur had to pull out of the Philippines, he was in a bit of a rush. I mean, think about it. The entire Japanese army, navy and air force were heading for the Philippines and he had to get out of there fast. Perhaps there were one or two things that MacArthur had forgotten to take with him. You know: his stapler, some yellow legal pads, a couple of boxes of pens, rubber bands, paper clips, a couple of highlighters, stuff like that. MacArthur would soon be out of a job again and he was going to need some office supplies.

[i] Douglas MacArthur and his father Arthur were the first father and son team to both win Congressional Medals of Honor. The second team to win the medal was Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. who were awarded the medals posthumously in 2001 for their service in the Spanish-American War.
[ii] To get an idea of Quezon’s approach to his government service, consider this quote from a speech he gave "I prefer a country run like hell by Filipinos to a country run like heaven by Americans. Because, however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it."