7/5/2013

Omar Bradley as punching bag


A reader, now friend*, recently sent me an email referring to a column listing Omar Bradley's alleged sins on D-Day. These ranged from the old chestnut of his "failure" to use water-breathing tanks on the beaches to his choice of a "head-on" assault rather than a mysterious "flank" attack.

The author of the column was a nationally known pundit who clearly doesn't know much about World War II, so while I'm intrigued by the notion of an attack that surely used the fifth dimension, I'm not going to bother spending time with the criticisms. None stand up to actual examination.

What was interesting about the column was the way the criticisms were used: the author wanted to write about how D-Day was won by the "common" man, the soldiers who were there. He wanted to extol their bravery and courage under fire. Which, certainly, is not only a noble theme, but accurate as well. The guys who took the bullets on the beaches - and in the water, and on the bluffs, and in the terrain behind the beaches, etc. - were extremely heroic, and it's to them that the lion's share of the credit for winning the battle should go.

As it always should.

But that's not a reason to invent criticisms of their leaders. Nor do any warranted criticisms of their leaders (and there certainly are warranted criticisms, of Bradley and the other leaders, as no one is perfect) make their deeds any more noble.

What was going on in the column was a common rhetorical device. Consciously or unconsciously, the author felt that he needed to elevate heroism by denigrating something else. He couldn't or wouldn't call Bradley a coward, but he could claim that he was incompetent, or at least less than very competent. While the rhetorical device probably dates back to the time when scribes were chiseling words in stone, it's been especially popular in pop writing about military matters since Vietnam. Writers who want to extol the virtues of the guys and gals actually fighting the war but not seem to approve of the war itself can do so easily by criticizing the generals and politicians at the top. And what's good for Vietnam, is good for war in general. And life in general, for that matter. No pun intended in either case.

For the columnist, Bradley was just a device. Any of the D-Day leaders really could have been used, but he's especially convenient because the general public really knows little about either him or his role in the war, let alone D-Day. Nor, for that matter, do they know much about the actual battle, beyond maybe what they saw in Saving Private Ryan.

Needless to say, Bradley wasn't perfect at D-Day. But he was far from incompetent. And whatever criticisms we might have of him are at best close to nitpicking - the American forces took their objectives in the face of stiff and murderous opposition.

Thanks largely to their courage, bravery and sacrifice.

* I welcome correspondence through my website; email me at: author(at)jimdefelice.com
Put @ in place of (at) and you're good to go.