Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Victor Davis Hanson, author of the new book, Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. Today’s subject? The American way of war.
General Patton was emblematic of the American way of war — get in, forget the flanks, push, push, push. Americans in this vast continent of great distances were attuned very early to machines, the transcontinental railroad, the telegraph. Young kids grew up fixing Model As, fixing Model Ts, shooting their own guns on the frontier. That restless can-do spirit — the impulse to move, move, move — made the American military very mobile, highly impatient, very adept at transportation logistics.
It was not well-suited for something like the Somme or Verdun or six or seven years in Vietnam or Iraq.