Gen. George Marshall exemplified the great American soldier

George Catlett Marshall, 1880-1959, was arguably the Republic’s greatest soldier. With the exception of George Washington, no other military statesman in American history confronted and surmounted tasks more difficult and achieved results more definitive and lasting to our national interest than he did. Neither Lee nor Jackson, nor Grant or Sherman, not even Pershing or MacArthur, in their own contributions to strategic insight and tactical brilliance, were to manage what he accomplished. Winston Churchill, comfortable with his own genius, and not easily impressed by the quality in others, was awed by the sheer force of General Marshall’s character and abilities, and famously called him “the organizer of victory” in World War II. As Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, as Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and as a Presidential envoy, George Marshall embodied the qualities of selfless citizenship celebrated in the civic liturgy of the American experience. No other leader of men or commander of armies in all our history was so transparently qualified to lead and command, or radiated a more powerful and inspiring moral authority than he did. With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, no other public figure in our national odyssey better understood the American people or American institutions than he did. In stature, he stands alone – the quintessential American citizen-soldier and model American military veteran.
As a soldier, he was a citizen by conviction; as a citizen, he was a soldier bound by selfless devotion to duty and to country. As a statesman, he was both. His influence upon the professional destinies of two generations of American military and political leaders was equally profound. Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Stilwell, Hodges, Truscott, Ridgeway, Taylor, Gavin, and Walker all owed their commands, their careers, and their places in history to the confidence, support, and guiding hand of George Marshall. During the political malaise and near constitutional crisis caused by Douglas MacArthur’s insubordination in Korea, it was General Marshall who unhesitatingly backed President Truman by repeatedly insisting that the Korean commander had to be relieved, or fired, irrespective of the political consequences, for disobeying the orders and defying the authority of the president as commander-in-chief.
As the architect of the Allied triumph over Germany and Japan, he presided after the war, as Secretary of State, over the most enlightened and generous endeavor recorded in American foreign policy – the economic reconstruction and political stabilization of postwar Europe, in what became known as the Marshall Plan. As Secretary of Defense, he argued firmly and successfully for American policies to contain the aggressive spread of communism. He is the only professional soldier ever to win the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Even his last years, he continued to live the wisdom of example and performed a final service as a soldier, statesman and veteran in a gesture that would be unrecognizable in our contemporary culture of greedy celebrity. He refused to cash in.
Declining repeated offers of huge sums to write his memoirs, and rejecting lucrative endorsement and corporate board deals, he yielded only to the entreaties of trusted friends and colleagues and agreed to be interviewed for the preparation of an eventual biography. In so doing, he insisted that in the publication of any biography, or of his official papers and correspondence, no gain, no benefit, or enrichment to himself or his family could result. The honor of his profession as a soldier, and the pay he had received through his long career was more than enough. What he had done as a soldier in the service of his country simply was not for sale.
Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman trusted General Marshall completely and considered him indispensable. Their admiration was rooted in a common appreciation for his selflessness and his complete integrity, his willingness to sacrifice his own personal preferences in providing relentlessly objective advice, his moral prism which sorted out all color in distinguishing unerringly between black and white, and his unwillingness to make even the slightest compromise or exception in distinguishing between right and wrong. These two great Presidents received from George Marshall what no one else could give; the selfless dedication of great abilities, adorned by the complete courage of a total, unvarnished honesty. He sought no man’s job; he represented no special interest; he pursued no other agenda than his duty and his loyalty to his country – as a soldier and as a veteran of the United States Army.
In living a personal and professional life informed by these qualities, George Catlett Marshall, American citizen and professional soldier stands as an enduring example of all that is best in the American military veteran, the citizen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who are the human products of these two great traditions that have shaped and ennobled our national journey.

charles w. Sydnor jr. delivered this as a homily last Sunday at Chilhowie United Methodist Church. Sydnor is a former president of Emory & Henry College.