All American Boyz New York 2

7 Million in New York for the parade. I have gone back to the largest ever parade event in World and North American- OK then New York –Empire State History not because on the face of it there appears to be any or much connection to The Holocaust of European Jews in the early years of the 1940 decade- But underlying our thoughts we have been considering American Hero’s –All American Boys- Worshipped and obeyed men who lead millions and controlled millions –the most powerful people of a past century to see- well why New York? All these people are products of New York’s education, environment, political aspirations and success- yet literally at times they have- these men- control over the destinies of nations –the direction of the world… Oh well Empire State Rules the World OK! So humor me here as I wander off from the IBM and the Holocaust story to look at something unrelated but the product of the very same decades of the first half of the 20th century- As we consider Greatest Ever US military General- Douglas MacArthur responsible as you may well know for the largest and most catastrophic US military defeats- Firstly to Japan in their anyone could have predicted they would come- decimation of the American military stronghold in the Philippines December 1941. And then as we remember every time we Celebrate Weeping Thanksgiving- the largest ever US military defeat –Thanksgiving 1950- A MacArthur engineered disaster! ‘Truman and his advisors expected an explosion but it was much worse than any of them had imagined. Huge crowds turned out for MacArthur everywhere. It began in Tokyo where as he departed, quarter of a million Japanese many of them weeping, most of them waving small Japanese and American flags, lined the streets. Giant crowds gathered in Hawaii where he landed after midnight, and an ever larger one met him in San Francisco again after midnight- a crowd so immense that the security people could not hold them back. When eventually he came to New York for a tickertape parade, it was said that 7 million people turned out, twice as many as Eisenhower returning victorious from World War 2….. It was a last hurrah for a great hero of WW2, combined with a powerful protest by a nation that did not enjoy it’s new superpower status. It was produced by almost equal parts of love and anger. It was powerful stuff. It was also political- not acclaimed of the crowds, the millions of Americans who rallied to MacArthur’s cause, which they saw as something simpler than it was, but the challenge of the Republican right. At first the general had it all his own way… Those who did not see what he saw, those who did not want to use all of America’s force in Korea, were guilty of appeasement…. Those who would ‘appease Red China’… ‘appeasement begets new and bloodier war’. Those who thought we lacked the forces to hold the Communists in both Europe and Asia were wrong… He had wanted to use the 600,000 Nationalist soldiers on Taiwan but was not granted them… I am closing my fifty two years of military service. When I joined the Army even before the turn of the century it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams… Old soldiers never die; they just fade away- the old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him light to see that duty. Good bye’ p607-609 The Coldest Winter David Halberstam Macmillian 2007