PATTON: A BIOGRAPHY Read Online Free Page B

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CHAPTER 2

Cadet, Soldier, Athlete, Swordsman
    AS A SOLDIER, GEORGE S. PATTON JR. WOULD LIVE AND FIGHT in many climes and countries, but his most dramatic journey came in 1903 and took him from the sharp brown hills of southern California to the lush, green, low, and rolling folds of the Blue Ridge that formed the backdrop to the Virginia Military Institute’s campus of crenellated gothic buildings outside of Lexington, Virginia. Later in life, Patton would recall how “Papa and Mama took me east to enter the V.M.I. . . . Papa went with me to report. The First Captain, Ragland, was in the room on the left of the salley port which had been Papa’s when he was Sergeant Major.” So there it was, in this strange, new place: the presence of the past. Papa (VMI, 1877) and his father (VMI, 1852) before him had been cadets here, as had great-uncles John Mercer Patton Jr. (VMI 1846) and Waller Tazewell Patton (VMI 1855). George signed the enrollment papers, and Ragland looked toward Papa: “‘Of course you realize Mr. Patton that now your son is a cadet he cannot leave the grounds.’ Papa said ‘Of course.’ I never felt lower in my life.” 1
    As far as the faculty and cadets of VMI were concerned, that was precisely the feeling appropriate to a first-year cadet. They were called rats. But George had an additional disadvantage. His dyslexia caused him to stumble over a handwritten “no hazing pledge” all incoming cadets were required to read aloud in an assembly. As usual, he kept no secret from his Papa, who wrote on September 27, 1903: “I do not see how you are going to over-come this difficulty, except by practicing reading all kinds of writing.” And the words that follow could have been written by General Patton himself. “Do not give up,” Papa wrote, “but when you start to read any thing keep at it till you work it out.” He continued, helpfully and practically, by pointing out that “hazing” had been misspelled as “hazeing” in his son’s letter. “The verb is ‘to haze’ and you should remember the general rule—to drop the final ‘e’ before ‘ing.’” 2 There was never anything pompous or empty in what Papa told his son, but always a mixture of warm encouragement and practical advice. This was at the root of Patton’s own command style. A stern and intimidating presence, Patton nevertheless celebrated the high performance of subordinates and, when he corrected them, he did so with concrete criticism and practical advice.
    As comforting as communication with his father was, Cadet Patton was even more delighted when he presented himself to the school tailor, who not only recognized him as a Patton, but remarked that his uniform measurements were exactly those of his father and his grandfather. He soon felt as if he belonged there, almost as if he had come home. Papa advised him (as Patton recalled years later) “that the first thing was to be a good soldier, next a good scholar.” Cadet Patton became a model soldier, flawless in appearance and in his execution of every movement of every drill. He memorized VMI regulations and followed them to the letter. An outside of observer might have thought his devotion obsessive, even fanatical, but there were no outsiders at VMI. A third-generation cadet, he had marched into his birthright, as had many of his classmates. They did not think him a grind or a fanatic; they respected and admired him. He had a natural talent for behaving like “one of the fellows,” but he never broke the rules or, as he gleefully admitted to Papa, never allowed himself to get caught. He was the first in his class to be initiated into “K.A.,” a secret fraternity, which immediately resulted in upperclassmen treating him “almost as an equal.” Possessed of a thoroughly sympathetic understanding of the caste system at VMI, George wrote Papa: “Theoretically, I do not approve” of being coddled by upperclassmen, “but practically I do.” In this,