"The Fate of the Generals," Jonathan Horn

 For the benefit of new readers and as a reminder to older ones, these short essays on books are not critical reviews. They are simply brief write-ups on books I have enjoyed.

 

Yesterday was the first full day of summer, and what a beaut it turned out to be, with temperatures in the 80s, a slight breeze, and a family lunch at the beach. 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

The Fate of the Generals, Jonathan Horn

June 22, 2025

 

“In those desperate days, the United States had needed two very

different generals: one for the headlines and one for the front lines.”

                                                                                                                                Jonathan Horn

                                                                                                                                The Fate of the Generals

 

“War is hell,” is a truism popularized by General William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War. In The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill wrote: “In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.” In war there are choices, but none that are perfect. 

 

………………………………………………………………

 

Jonathan Horn tells the stories of Generals Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright who found themselves in the Philippines at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Both men were born into military families. MacArthur’s father won the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Missionary Ridge in 1863. After the Spanish-American War, he served as Military Governor of the Philippines. Wainwright’s grandfather was a naval officer who was killed during the Battle of Galveston in 1863, and his father died in the Philippines while serving as an U.S. Army Officer during the pacification period. Both MacArthur and Wainwright were first captains of their respective West Point classes. 

 

The Philippines lie strategically, south of Japan, China and Taiwan. To the west is the South China Sea and the India Ocean, and to the east is the Philippine Sea and the Pacific Ocean. At the time, the Philippines were transitioning from a Protectorate of the United States to full independence. General MacArthur was the Commander of U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East, which gave him command of all U.S. and Philippine military forces. General Wainwright was commander of the North Luzon Force and the senior field commander of Filipino and U.S. forces, under General MacArthur. 

 

The first six months of the War went Japan’s way, at least until the Battle of Midway in early June when the U.S. Navy decisively defeated the Japanese Imperial Navy. On December 8, 1941, the Japanese invaded the Philippines; on Christmas day Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese; Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in March. Under orders from President Roosevelt, General MacArthur left the Philippines on March 11, promising to return. General Wainwright stayed behind, knowing his position was hopeless. On May 6, 1942, he raised the white flag. While MacArthur realized his promise in October 1944, Wainwright and close to 70,000 American and Filipino Soldiers endured the Bataan death march and imprisonment over the next three-plus years, until the Japanese surrender was announced on August 15, 1945. Fewer than half survived.

 

Using primary sources, Jonathan Horn contrasts the fates that were in store for MacArthur and Wainwright, two very different men. While MacArthur’s words and actions have long been controversial, the author neither reveres nor demonizes the man. Facts are presented. Judgement is left to the reader.

"Good and Evil"

 Tomorrow is Juneteenth, a federal holiday since 2021, though the name was first used in the 1890s. It celebrates the emancipation of slaves in the U.S., specifically the day slavery ended in Texas in 1865. With the ratification of the 13^th Amendment in December 1865, slavery officially ended in the United States. Delaware and Kentucky were the last two states to officially prohibit the practice.

 

While it is hard for us to understand, slavery was the norm for most of human history. Helen Keller once wrote: “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.” When the Union that is now the United States was formed in 1781, slavery was common in the agricultural south but was practiced in all of the original thirteen colonies. Nevertheless, abolitionists were beginning to make their voices heard. On February 24, 1820, John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary: “Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union…” So, Thursday is the day we celebrate the end of that evil practice.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Good and Evil”

June 18, 2025

 

“In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them,

and one of them must conquer. But in our hands lies the power to choose – what we want to be, we are.”

                                                                                                        Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

                                                                                                       The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, 1886

 

In the early spring of 1945, my father, a 34-years-old Harvard educated artist, married and father of four was serving as a private with the 10^th Mountain Division in Italy. They had suffered many casualties, as the Germans were gradually pushed north out of the Apennines. A few years later, my father spoke of his experiences. He mentioned that once a few young, enraged G.I.s had killed a captured German soldier with shovels. Earlier that same day, two German soldiers had approached their lines with arms raised. The G.I.s rose to meet them. In a moment, the Germans fell to the ground, and a machine gunner behind them killed two of the Americans. While war can bring out the best in people, it can also bring out the worst.

 

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Just like good, evil lurks in all of us. It is our responsibility – to the extent possible – to contain it, to smother it, to let goodness overwhelm it. “Wisdom,” wrote John Cheever in his Journals, “is the knowledge of good and evil…” In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us…But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.” This is a subject that has been on my mind, with Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and as I have been reading Jonathan Horn’s new book, The Fate of the Generals. It is difficult to reconcile the vile treatment of American and Filipino prisoners by the Japanese, with the Japanese I knew in business and socially. Two generations ago, German Nazis were gassing Jews. Today, they are an ally of Israel. In his 1860 novel The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins wrote: “The best men are not consistent in good – why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”

 

Today, evil is manifested in the anti-Semitism that has infested much of the West. Do college students, born sixty years after the genocide of Jews in Europe and who now accuse Israel of practicing genocide on Palestinians, have any knowledge of history? Battles between forces of good and evil, are as old as mankind. The Bible tells us that Jesus, as the son of God, is inherently good, while man is flawed, so must avoid temptations. Most of my generation have read Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster, of Webster’s defense of Jabez Stone who sold his soul to the devil in return for seven years of good luck. The message: In moments of weakness, good people can make bad decisions.

 

This battle between good and evil is not limited to people. On March 8, 1983, President Reagan correctly referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” Evil manifests itself in nation’s where authoritarian leaders control their populations. In the past century, one can think of Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Today Ali Hosseini Khamenei Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un serve that role, as their governments deny citizens their natural rights – “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments run by and for dictators disallow people the freedom to achieve their dreams. Yet good people can (and do) live in these countries. Nevertheless, the contrast of autocracies to democracies, where power rests with the people and their representatives, is stark. This can be seen today in Israel’s fight with Iran and Ukraine’s war with Russia. In this uncertain world, and because the United States is a ‘good’ nation, the projection of military strength is necessary to help preserve peace. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt sent sixteen U.S. Naval battleships (the Great White Fleet) on a 42,000 mile, fourteen-month world tour, making twenty port calls on six continents. On Flag Day 2025, President Trump ordered a parade celebrating the U.S. Army’s 250^thbirthday. “Peace is Our Profession” was the motto of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). 

 

In his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Martin Luther King said, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” I believe what he said is correct for those of us fortunate to live in a democracy, but, sadly, it is not true for those who find themselves subjected to authoritarian governments, which, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index for 2024, comprises 39.2% of the world’s population. Thus, more than three billion people are held hostage by evil leaders.

 

As a democracy of free-thinking people, we will always have myriad opinions, from religion to education, from culture to social welfare, and on a host of other subjects. Supporters of these differing opinions are not necessarily evil, nor are their opponents. The history of the United States could be written in protests. Among the successful ones: the Abolitionists of the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries, which lead to the Civil War and the end of slavery; opponents of poor working conditions and low wages during the early years of the Industrial Revolution led to the creation of unions; Suffragettes of late 19^thand early 20^th Centuries led to the adoption of the 19^th Amendment in 1920; the “Bonus Army” of 1932 demanded payment for service in World War I, and helped relieve poverty during the Great Depression; In the late 1930s, Isolationists battled Interventionists, yet all became unified after Pearl Harbor; Civil Rights’ protests in the late 1950s and early 1960s preceded passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968; anti-war protests, fueled by the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s hastened the end of that war.

 

On the other hand, some recent protests are driven  by self-interest, counter-productive, pig-headed, or just plain silly: anti-Semites calling for the end of what they claim is Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians; the destruction of pipelines by those calling for the end of fossil fuels: Defund the Police, the consequences of which are harmful for those most vulnerable in our society; and the short-lived Code Pink: Women for Peace. Democracy, by definition, allows for civil disobedience. But change is best accepted when its progress is gradual. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau wrote Resistance to Civil Government, in which he argued that individuals had a moral obligation to protest unjust laws. Of course, one person’s definition of an unjust law may differ from another’s, but that is why we have courts to resolve such differences.

 

We are living through a period of political extremism, of assassinations and protests, not always peaceful and sometimes led by professional agitators. In our secular age, with its ‘smart’ phones, social media and artificial intelligence (AI), moral values have splintered. Evil is  more ubiquitous when society is spiritually hollow and human connection absent. Wisdom, today, is in short supply; nevertheless, “the function of wisdom,” according to Cicero, “is to discriminate between good and evil.” Thus, while we should be unafraid to express our opinions, we should do so respectfully. We should avoid falling into the trap of hatred – of letting evil bury the good that is within us.

"Pictures and Photos Also Tell Stories"

 This essay was suggested by a friend and former high school classmate who is a skilled amateur photographer – a written essay that tries to convey the idea that stories can be told through pictures and photographs.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Pictures and Photos Also Tell Stories”

June 11, 2025

 

“The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book.”

                                                                                                                                   Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883)

                                                                                                                                   Fathers and Sons, 1862

 

Drawings predate writing by almost 40,000 years. Among the earliest cave drawings are those in the Leang Tedongnge cave in a remote Indonesian valley. One drawing of a wild pig is estimated to be 45,000 years old. In contrast, the earliest known example of writing, on a tablet found in the Sumerian city of Kish, has been dated 3,500 BCE. The well-known Lascaux network of caves in the Dordogne region of southwest France, dating to 17,000-15,000 BCE, show elaborate hunting scenes. 

 

Johannes Gutenberg’s press was invented in the mid 15^th Century, which allowed words to be put on paper, so stories and histories could be readily passed on. But pictures remained a meaningful way of expressing a story. Leonardo’s da Vinci’s Last Supper was finished in 1498 and tells that story better than words could express. Tintoretto’s massive depiction of the Crucifixion, painted 70 years later, is mesmerizing in its sad tale of Jesus’ death.

 

The invention of photography – literally “drawing with light” –revolutionized the telling of stories with pictures. The photos of Matthew Brady, the father of photo journalism, along with the drawings of Thomas Nast, speak to the horrors of the Civil War. Erich Maria Remarque’s story of the brutality of World War One’s trench warfare in All Quiet on the Western Front is matched by the photographs of Ernest Brooks and William Rider-Rider.

 

John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath brought the Depression to millions of readers, but Dorothea Lange’s haunting 1936 photograph of “migrant Mother” is remembered as well. World War II was brought into homes through the radio broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, but also by way of the photographs of Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa in Life, and the cartoons of Bill Mauldin in Stars and Stripes.

 

Ansel Adams brought the U.S.A. to millions through his landscape views of the American west, photos that contributed to later conservation efforts. More recently, the TV series “A Day in the Life,” allowed millions of Americans to be a fly-on-the-wall observing distinctive individuals go about their daily lives. Drawings and photos of family and friends, of clouds and rock-outcroppings, of the flora and fauna that surround where we live bring a sense of security and joy to our lives. On my walls and tables are dozens of photographs that bring back to life the lives of those who have passed on.

 

Paintings, photographs, architecture, even movies, are not a substitute for the written word, but all artists are observers, and they catch what they eye does not read. One cannot enter a cathedral or temple without thinking of the stories of those who preached and prayed there, as well as of those – frequently slaves – who built it. Artists, photographers and artisans speak to our visual senses in a way words cannot.