Thursday, Jan. 26 2017 was Douglas MacArthur’s 137th birthday. To celebrate, here are 3 random facts about him.
#3: He’s Got Brains
MacArthur was elected valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1903. Not only was he at the top of his graduating class at West Point, he became the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1919 to 1922. After West Point, he was commissioned into the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He also became the Army’s youngest major general in 1925.
#2: Get His Signature Look
At all of our football games, you will always see one of MAC’s students dressed up as him in his signature look with aviator sunglasses and a corncob pipe. Missouri Meerschaum, the maker and giver of MacArthur’s pipes, continues to craft replicas of MacArthur’s customized pipe, and Ray-Ban named a sunglass line after him in 1987.
#1: Vomited on The White House?!
In 1934, Roosevelt proposed large military cuts and held a meeting that General MacArthur visited. After all the heat, MacArthur offered his resignation as Army chief of staff, but Roosevelt refused. Still nauseous from the heated meeting, MacArthur got sick on the White House steps after leaving. Even he got nervous.
