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Kid General. If MacArthur had a vision of his own greatness, he had better reasons than most men. His father was Arthur MacArthur, "the Boy Colonel of the West." Arthur joined the Union forces in his home state of Wisconsin, became one of the youngest regimental commanders of the war. At 18, he led an assault on Missionary Ridge, and for his courage won the Medal of Honor. As a lieutenant general, he put down the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the century, became commanding U.S. general in the Philippines and U.S. military governor of the islands.
Douglas, born in Little Rock in 1880, traveled with his family to posts in the Pacific and the raw West. He entered West Point at 19, graduated at the head of his class in 1903. Commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, he served a hitch in the Philippines, was his father's aide-de-camp in 1905 when Arthur MacArthur was sent to Japan as an observer during the Russo-Japanese War.
By 1917, MacArthur was a seasoned officer. He conceived the idea of creating a division made up of National Guard units from various states. He dubbed it the Rainbow Division (the 42nd), was appointed chief of staff, helped hone it into a tough fighting force and went with it to war. The famous 42nd fought its way through the bloody St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. MacArthur himself was gassed and wounded, but led his men in those actions and half a dozen others. When the Armi stice came, he was division commander and known as the "Kid General."
After serving with the occupation forces, he returned to the U.S. for a stint as superintendent of West Point, and two more assignments in the Philippines. By that time, he was already a man of towering repute. President Hoover appointed him Army Chief of Staff and made him a full general in 1930. He reorganized the U.S. continental forces into a viable four-army fighting machine. He was also something of a legendary character who (it was said) wielded the longest cigarette holder in the Army. But his reputation suffered in the bitter 1932 "Victory of Anacostia Flats," when he flourished a riding crop and with a military force routed the bonus-marchers from Washington.
Destiny! MacArthur was convinced, despite America's obsession with neutrality, that war would inevitably come to the Pacific. The Philippines, he felt, were the key outpost in the U.S. Pacific line of defense. MacArthur's long association with the islands and with their people drew him once more to the Philippines. In 1937, after he had become Field Marshal of the Philippine Commonwealth's army, he gave up his U.S. commission. Americans on the Islands called him "the Napoleon of Luzon," but he single-mindedly pursued his goal. "By God!" he told a newsman in 1940, "it was destiny that brought me here!" In July 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt recalled MacArthur to service, gave him command of the U.S. Army forces in the Far East and transferred the newly built Philippine army into the U.S. forces. It was too late. The Philippines were doomed under the Japanese attacks in early 1942.