The Leadership of George S. Patton, Jr -- Example 
General Patton wrote to his cadet son at West Point, “Be particularly spooney [flashy], so spooney that you not only get by but attract attention. Why do you suppose I pay so much attention to being well dressed? Have your clothes well pressed; when I was boning [working to achieve cadet rank] I always had one uniform that I never sat down in.”
Patton was the beau ideal in his military dress. As a general officer he wore a magnificently tailored, form fitting battle jacket with brass buttons. Above the left pocket were four rows of campaign ribbons and decorations and on each shoulder and shirt collar were pinned oversized general’s stars. His trousers were pink whipcord riding breeches. He wore high-topped cavalry boots, shined to a mirror-like finish, and spurs. Around his waist was a hand carved leather belt with a gleaming brass buckle. On each side rested a pearl-handled pistol ornamented with the stars of a four-star general. In his hand he carried a riding crop. His helmet was shellacked to a lustrous finish, and it too had stars. One officer in describing General Patton’s dress said, “The first time you see him, ‘boom!’” There is no doubt that his appearance in uniform attracted attention. His dress seemed to say “I’m Patton--the best damn general in this or any other army.”
As Patton traveled over the army forward areas he rode in an open jeep so all his men could see him. Mounted on a platform in the rear of the highly-polished jeep was a 50-calibre machine gun, manned by his aide. The upholstery was bright red, and on the front and back were oversized stars signifying his military rank. As he sped along the road visiting and inspecting, the driver announced Patton’s presence by running a loud siren or sounding a multiple tone French horn. The distinctive sound of the horn was recognized as Patton’s by all within hearing distance. His jeep, like his military dress, seemed to announce “Here comes General Patton, commander of the best damn army in the world.” 
When a town was captured, he was among the first to enter even though there was danger of sniper bullets and delayed bombs. After an amphibious invasion, he would leap into the surf before his landing barge was grounded, wading ashore amidst zinging bullets, artillery shells and mortar fire, yelling encouraging remarks to the men. He waded across many a river as his army moved over France and Germany. He even practiced to perfection his facial expressions. Once his sister Nita asked him, “Why do you look so mean and ornery in your pictures?” Patton laughed and replied, “That’s my war face.” 
One cold, rainy afternoon during the war Patton came upon a group of men at work repairing a tank which had been hit by enemy fire. The tank, because of the heavy movement of traffic forward towards the line of battle, had pulled about ten yards off the road. Seeing this, Patton ordered his driver to stop. He jumped out of his jeep, went over to the disabled tank and crawled underneath it. The two mechanics, busy working on the necessary repairs, were awe-struck to see the shiny silver stars of a general in the mud. Patton, according to the assistant division commander whose area he was touring at the time, remained under the tank for twenty-five minutes. When he returned to his jeep, he was covered with mud and grease. His aide asked, “Sir, what was wrong?” Patton replied, “I don’t know, but I am sure that the word will spread throughout the division that I was on my belly in the mud repairing the tank.” 
Sometimes the effectiveness of Patton’s showmanship was based on simplicity. In Berlin, just after the war was over, Patton and Marshal Zhukov were representing their respective countries at the dedication of a Russian war memorial. Zhukov’s uniform blouse was completely covered with medals on both sides. By contrast, General Patton wore only a few campaign ribbons. An observer of the ceremony commented that “Patton looking so neat and trim was more lethal than even the big Russian tanks.” 
Patton’s showmanship as a general was not new to him or to colleagues in the military leadership rank. As a cavalryman in the twenties, General Patton was known as “Horse George” because of his antics in polo and riding. One friend said of his junior officer relationships with Patton, “We always seemed to be charging.” When Patton took command of the 2nd Armored Division he designed a special green uniform for tank personnel, which earned him the nickname of “Green Hornet” and “Flash Gordon”. Others found such names as Buck Rogers, Man from Mars, and Iron Pants fitting for his personality. In one of his speeches he told the men in his command that it look only two things to win a war--blood and guts. This earned him another name as Army Commander in World War II, “Old Blood and Guts”. To him such names were indicative of successful showmanship, of the notoriety that he considered vital to the leadership of an army. With a command of almost 500,000 men Patton necessarily had to exert his leadership from a distance, and flamboyance helped to spread the image he wanted his men to see. 
Major General Reinhart, commander of the 65th Infantry Division, wrote of his action under Patton in Germany that the advance “was extremely rapid and was in the nature of a pursuit. Our flanks were seldom secure and we were threatened by envelopments. . . So much so that my three infantry regimental commanders once in a group protested informally to me that they did not like our situation. ‘We have been riding all the way up here with our shirt tails out’ [meaning their exposed flanks], was the way they expressed it.” General Rinehart asked them if they did not believe that, if worse came to worst and they were surrounded, “Georgie” would be on the way to pull them out. “This idea,” said General Reinhart, “seemed to satisfy them completely and I never heard another word about it from any of them.” These officers had never met Patton, but they knew his reputation. Loud and colorful, even from a distance, he was able to create a personal leadership. 
General Eisenhower noted that Patton’s showmanship “was a shell that was worn constantly and carefully.” Everything Patton did had a purpose. He believed that a leader, in order to make himself known in the lower echelons, should exhibit an individualism calculated to cause men to talk about him. His soldiers knew him as a personality and thought of him as one of themselves, not a “rank” at a remote desk. Having created the image, he assiduously preserved it. He told Major General Robert C. Macon in North Africa in 1943, “During training I wore two pearl handled revolvers. They called me “Two Gun Patton”. Well, when I came ashore here, I was not going to let them down. I wore the damn two guns.”
Those who were close to Patton saw that he was an actor. He could turn his showmanship on or off as the situation required. For the dedication of a cemetery, for a speech of praise to his officers and men, or for biting criticism of a unit which performed poorly, he had different but appropriate acts. He was not, however, insincere. Nor did his showmanship seem awkward; though admittedly a costume, it was a tailored and well-fitted one. 

《NINETEEN STARS》
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