Douglas MacArthur rose to pinnacle after pinnacle throughout his storied career as a student, soldier, general and commander.
He was valedictorian at his high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, became the Army's youngest major general, was elected president of the American Olympic Committee, received the Medal of Honor, and was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to rebuild postwar Japan.
His service in uniform spanned 52 years and three major wars. He was awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses and five Silver Stars, and more than 100 other military decorations from the U.S. and other countries.
Born in Arkansas in 1880, his namesake tributes include Douglas MacArthur Junior High School in Jonesboro (original mascot: the Cadets), and both MacArthur Park downtown and the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in his birthplace of Little Rock.
Across the nation, myriad schools, streets and public works bear his name, the very sound of which suggests the epitome of soldierhood and service to country.
A contemporary Arkansas birthright to MacArthur was Sonora Smart Dodd, born in Sebastian County in 1882, and the intersection of these two Natural State natives is occasioned by this Sunday's commemorative holiday.
Dodd is credited with being the "Mother of Father's Day." She proposed the month of June, when her father's birthday fell, and the first formal holiday honoring fathers was celebrated in Spokane, Wash., in 1910.
In 1931, the Father's Day Council was formed to promote the fledgling holiday. Seeking greater attention, the council established a National Father's Day Committee in 1942 with the purpose of conferring "Father of the Year" honors on prominent U.S. leaders.
The award's first recipient was off in the far Pacific, in retreat with his family from the Philippines following a Japanese invasion, preparing plans to bolster Australia's defenses and planting the early seeds of his "island hopping" offensive strategy.
His son Arthur had been born in 1938, and Douglas MacArthur was touched by the honor, and the perspective he presented in a statement accepting the award was unexpected.
"By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father," he said.
Deeply religious, MacArthur routinely made time for morning devotional prayers. And in those early, despairing months of World War II, he put one down on paper called A Father's Prayer.
It begins "Build me a son, O Lord" and in several ensuing paragraphs of prose he asks God to bestow a number of characteristics, lessons and attributes on his young child.
He wanted Arthur to "be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid ... Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee ..."
He beseeched God to lead his son "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."
He prayed for 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 ..."
After God built all those things into his son, MacArthur prayed that He also add "enough of a 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."
The father/general closed with a simple, powerful declaration. "Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, 'I have not lived in vain.'"
A lot has changed in America since 1942, and the arrangement of these words demonstrate a big difference in social attitudes that permeates more than parenting.
To begin with, MacArthur didn't ask God for an outcome at all. He asked God to equip his son for opportunity, rather than bless him with entitlement. He asked for a hard, stressful life for his son because it is from difficulty that we learn to appreciate achievement.
He wanted his son to know failure because without that knowledge we improperly credit ourselves, and wrongly judge others. He recognized pride as one of the greatest sins and vices, and prayed for humility because of its critical revelation in life's foundational truths.
Family statistics tell us that the absence of fathers in too many American children's lives is a national crisis today. What MacArthur's poem tells us is the bigger crisis is in our modern miseducation and individual selfishness about parenthood and posterity.
The fatherly motivation for MacArthur was his recognition of purpose and realization that all his life's accomplishments would be in vain if he failed in raising his son to possess and embody the qualities he prayed for.
A feast for thought in this era of parents unapologetically falsifying college applications at elite universities to give their children unfair advantages.
------------v------------
Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 06/14/2019