The Generals Come Home

It was the Generals' week. They were honored around the world; their-homecomings were cheered across the land. Their thoughts and opinions, on war & peace, were drummed into the U.S. public.

Good Soldier Omar Bradley mounted the pulpit in the Central Christian Church of Moberly, Mo. Flyer Jimmy Doolittle flew his first Superfortress. Georgie Patton went to Sunday school; Carl Spaatz visited his 78-year-old mother (who told him: "You're just my baby boy"); leathery Alexander Patch brought back the gaudiest trophy yet: gewgawful Marshal Goring's diamond-studded marshal's baton.

Ike Eisenhower, thrice-honored in Europe (see Heroes), sent his positive opinions on peacetime military training and the usefulness of OWI. This week he would have a triumphal homecoming.

Wrote the New York Times's Anne O'Hare McCormick: "The remarkable thing is that the military commanders do not come back as conquering heroes. They come back as war-haters, successful soldiers who abhor the business in which they have been engaged. . . . These are conquerors who do not glorify war. . . . They are moved or outraged by human suffering. They are individuals, and they see other people as individuals. Their democracy is not only one of the head but of the heart."

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