Cecily Zander

He fails out of West Point twice.

Wyoming's senator was willing to appoint him to a third try at West Point, but he said, you know, maybe that's not for me.

He goes to MIT.

He's finally commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry.

He goes to the Philippines and then he's in the First World War.

Briefly, though, makes no name for himself.

And then he spends the interwar period on this amazing campaign of convincing everyone important in the United States Army that he was the next great general, the kind of next great up and coming guy.

I mean, his self-promotion campaign was quite remarkable.

He had people like George Marshall convinced that he was going to lead the United States to victory in the next great war the nation faced.

Yeah, he just would tell people sort of vaguely where to go.

He referred to like shooty boys and walkie boys.

He would never actually say like infantry and cavalry.

And there seemed to be no reason for this other than, you know, kind of his own absurdity.

The soldiers didn't care for it.

Soldiers like to be told where to go and what to do to feel confident that their general knows what's going on.

I don't think this guy ever gave an impression that he actually understood what was going on.

Yeah, you know, we talk about generals who understand sort of combined assault, the way to use multiple sort of important pieces to bring everything you have to bear on the enemy.

This is not what happens at Kasserine Pass.

This is just an absolute sort of disaster.

And we should take a step back to say that the United States was operating in this battle under the command of the British First Army, Kenneth Anderson.