Why every strong man fails sometimes

Letter #42

Image courtesy of The National Archives and Records Administration.

Hello Tom,

It was August 10, 1943, when one of the greatest field commanders in the history of America, General George Patton made one of the worst mistakes any leader could make. It was during the Sicily campaign and he had just stopped at an evacuation hospital outside of Nicosia.

While visiting the badly wounded soldiers there, he stumbled across Pvt. Paul Bennett who was suffering from battle fatigue. Now commonly known as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. When Patton saw him, he asked “what’s the matter with you?” to which Pvt. Bennett responded in anguish “It’s my nerves sir.”

People there testified that you could see the simmering emotion about to explode when he asked the private, “what did you say?” To which the private responded, “I guess I just can’t stand the shelling anymore.”

This caused one of the worst meltdowns as he lost all control and slapped, cursed and threatened the private with a firing squad. It was a terrible failure by the General and he paid dearly when the story broke and U.S. Congress wanted to relieve him of duty. After he was ordered by General Eisenhower to apologize, it was a very testy situation for about a year before he was given another command.

Let me take a brief detour here, then we’ll get back to this story and eventually tie this into Trump and Zelensky.

You told the story about your meltdown playing the video game last week after losing and how you got into a shouting match with a fellow player. This then caused Dalia to get up and close the doors and windows when it dawned on you that everyone that lives in your vicinity heard this “Gringo” creating a ruckus.

I can certainly relate to this story as you know me as well as anyone and have seen me at my best and worst. It really is embarrassing when people get a glimpse into that part of us that we don’t want anyone to see. I can certainly relate to you feeling embarrassed and ashamed while you isolated yourself in your bedroom.

What person alive can’t relate to this story?

I guess my question would be does this define you?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Your letter was very thought-provoking Tom. It kind of threw a monkey wrench into the statement I made that one of the greatest gifts a man can give is inner strength to a world that so desperately needs it. I think you made the comment that what man or person can live up to that ideal and live up to it consistently. The truth is it is very hard and challenging. As for me I’ve always had a lot of respect and admiration for men that have control over their emotions. It’s a wonderful trait to have because it gives those around you a feeling of safety.

In my life I haven’t succeeded at this consistently. It was a bad failure for you kids and your mother to see. It’s a battle I’ve fought my whole life.

I can be very hard on myself as I have a story that is very similar to yours. I had a pretty bad holiday season and month of January. There was a lot of stress on the job which then caused stress induced health issues. It never ceases to amaze me how much stress has an impact on my health. I was at my breaking point the day before I was to go on vacation. It’s crazy the curve balls life throws at you. At the end of the day when I was getting ready to leave, another challenging job was thrown my way.

I exploded in front of my coworker with a profanity laced tirade.

And I’m supposed to be a Christian which made it all the worse!

After some contemplation and trying to get some perspective, I remembered that all of us have categories in which we fail and succeed. These things also don’t happen in a vacuum. When you have more responsibility, the possibility of showing anger also increases. I think there’s good anger and bad anger. Even the bible says, “be angry and sin not.”

Jesus said some pretty vicious things to the religious leaders of his day. This is just a sample.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess, how will you escape being condemned to hell.”

It dawned on me thinking about those words—what if there was a camera there in those days? Would people judge Jesus and say he was being too harsh? That he wasn’t in control? What was the tone? Was he passionate? Did his face turn red?

I don’t know if it did in that context, but it certainly wasn’t pretty when he made a whip and physically drove the people out of the temple that were disrespecting a place that was supposed to be holy. I wonder what our reaction would be if that was captured on social media if he lived today.

So, I guess it depends on the context. Are we to ever consider that?

In General Patton’s case I don’t think there’s ever an excusable reason to slap an enlisted man. Can you imagine that happening into today’s world?

We expect more of our leaders, as positions of authority bring greater expectations. This is always the case. Having said that, those in authority gave him another chance and I’m glad they did as he was indispensable to the war effort. Some said in those days that he should have never been given another command.

Were they wrong?

Did they have a point?

I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

But remember that in today’s world how many leaders in the past would be judged totally differently with cameras so easily accessible then plastered all over social media.

Having said that, let’s have a little history lesson. It’s a little crude but it’s history. We had a President that would walk around nude in the Air Force one office! He would urinate right in front of the press at his ranch! Brag about a certain part of his body and according to many witnesses show it without discretion. Many consider him one of the greatest civil rights Presidents in our history. None other than LBJ.

Can you imagine that happening today?

Would that have destroyed who many consider to be one of the greatest Presidents?

It’s an interesting question.

So finally, when it comes to the incident at the White House between Trump and Zelensky, what was my opinion?

My opinion changed somewhat after listening to a commentator I respect. Notice I used the word somewhat. For one thing most people probably haven’t seen the whole interaction. For the first part of the meeting, there was a lot of disrespect shown that Trump let go. I’ve watched the footage more than once. Like I said in the earlier examples, we need to look at context. For me, the question is after this escalated could it have been handled better? I know there have been many times in my life where I have been right in a disagreement, but wrong in my response. The way we handle a response is crucial. Now the generation I was born in and the family I was raised in may have a bearing in my view, but I don’t think they were screaming. I don’t even think they were yelling. This was two men being passionate about their position. I grew up in a home where I saw people out of control all the time, so I’m interpreting what I saw from that perspective. Plus, like I stated earlier I was born in 1963. I think in many ways there is going to be a disagreement between the generations on whether or not this is the way men should act. I respect your view Tom, and I think there’s much to learn from your generation. My view is that after the provocation there were things said by both men that made me cringe. I’m torn because in my view if you just sit there and take it your enemies are going to think you’re weak. There was a lot of politics and posturing going on too. Neither man wanted to look weak to the world or to their respective countries.

You stated that you can’t let the world walk all over you. I guess from my perspective that’s probably what these two men were thinking when this confrontation happened.

I know what I said about self-control and inner strength. I guess in this situation that’s all open to interpretation. Either way, I wished it wouldn’t have happened.

SPECIAL NOTE: Tom and I are going LIVE on Substack today at 3 PM ET with our friend Jon Santiago. We’ll discuss the themes of our recent letters, masculinity, and more! It’ll be free to join. You’ll get an email when we go live. We hope you’ll stop by!