During my freshman year at the Air Force Academy, I had to memorize a number of thought-provoking quotations to recite verbatim upon demand from upperclassmen. One of my favorites was, and still is, from Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Gen. MacArthur was superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point from 1919 to 1922, and he instituted many reforms in the intramural and intercollegiate athletic regimen. He reasoned, “Upon the fields of friendly strife are sewn the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.” Since our athletic program was much like West Point’s, the great general’s words were particularly meaningful.
From sports, athletes learn the value of competing as a unit. They learn the whole can be stronger than individuals by sacrificing individual desires so the team can win. MacArthur extrapolated the sports theme into placing the personal goals of individual American citizens second to the more honorable goal of respecting and defending our country as a whole.
The recent spate of protests during our national anthem made me reflect on MacArthur’s words, and they coincide with a very poignant personal time as my 92-year-old father is in ill health. Dad was drafted into the Army during World War II. Twenty years old and fresh off the farm, he found himself in the midst of the largest land battle in world history: the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.
In 1988, I was stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, and Dad came to visit. My family drove with him to Belgium, where the battle was fought, and there we found a peaceful pasture along a country lane where he and his fellow soldiers manned a machine gun outpost during the horrifying battle. As we drove along the road back toward Germany, he reminisced about traversing that same road after the weather cleared and the Allies reversed the German advance.