(January 26, 1880–April 5, 1964), was a U.S. Military General and World War II hero. He was superintendent of West Point, 1919–20, after having commanded the 42nd (Rainbow) Division during World War I. At the age of 30, he became Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, the youngest man to hold the post, and was promoted to general. In 1937, he retired from the army, but was recalled in 1941 to command the U.S. forces in the Far East. In 1942, he became Allied Supreme Commander in the Southwest Pacific Area, and in 1944 General of the Army. He received the surrender of the Japanese, and led the reconstruction of Japan after the war. During the Korean War, he served as Commander of the United Nations forces.
On April 9, 1942, in a tribute to the troops of Bataan, General Douglas MacArthur stated:
To the weeping mothers of its dead, I can only say that the sacrifice and halo of Jesus of Nazareth has descended upon their sons, and that God will take them unto Himself.3291
In commenting on being named Father of the Year, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur stated:
By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder—infinitely prouder—to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still.
It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, “Our Father Who Art in Heaven.“3292
On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte, and began the liberation of the Philippine Islands from oppression. He declared:
I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.3293
On October 20, 1944, in a radio speech broadcast from the invasion beach on returning to the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur stated:
Strike at every favorable opportunity. For your homes and hearths, strike! For future generations of your sons and daughters, strike! In the name of your sacred dead, strike! Let no heart be faint. Let every arm be steeled. The guidance of Divine God points the way. Follow in His name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory!3294
General Douglas MacArthur stated:
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.3295
On Sunday, September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, General Douglas MacArthur met with leaders of Allied forces to sign the treaty of the surrender of Japan. After signing, he offered a prayer:
Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.3296
In a speech addressing the Allied officers assembled on the deck of the USS Missouri, September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur declared:
We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem is basically theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances … of the past two thousand years. …
It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.3297
General Douglas MacArthur suggested that Youth for Christ representatives and other missionary groups go to Japan after World War II:
[In order to] provide the surest foundation for the firm establishment of democracy.3298
On April 19, 1951, following a tour of Korea, General Douglas MacArthur spoke to a Joint Session of Congress to announce his retirement:
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. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath of the Plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have all since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day, which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away. And, like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who has tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-by.3299
On January 18, 1955, a monument was dedicated to General Douglas MacArthur at the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, which had inscribed his statement:
Battles are not won by arms alone. There must exist above all else a spiritual impulse—a will to victory. In was there can be no substitute for victory.3300
On May 12, 1962, Douglas MacArthur addressed the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point:
The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training—sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image.
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.3301
General Douglas MacArthur composed “A Father’s Prayer” in the early days of World War II while in the Pacific:
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”3302
General Douglas MacArthur stated:
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.3303