Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer
"There is no question of personal courage in this war," Colonel Patton's
commanding officer told him on the eve of battle in 1918. "It is a
business proposition where every man must be in his place and performing
his part."
No one in the history of warfare was less likely to follow that advice
than George S. Patton Jr. His place was in front of his men, and he paid
the price, when he lay bleeding to death in a bomb crater in France.
Patton's survival that day at the end of World War I was nothing short
of miraculous. It confirmed the powerful sense of destiny that guided
him through three decades of war and made him a military legend--"Old
Blood and Guts," an impossible mixture of irascibility and courage,
profanity and profound religious faith, tactical impulsiveness and
strategic genius.
Blood and guts were indeed a large part of what made Patton Patton.
Descended from an illustrious line of warriors, he was acutely conscious
of the martial heritage in his blood. He met every challenge of his life
with determination and guts. He demanded the same from his men, and he
usually got it.
But as Michael Keane shows in this masterly portrait, the foundation of
Patton's character was his vivid awareness of the presence and
providence of God. Patton's Christian faith was idiosyncratic, even
unorthodox, but his habit of prayer was as simple, trusting, and
constant as a monk's.
A singular combination of virtues and flaws, Patton has been venerated
and despised but rarely understood. In Patton: Blood, Guts, and
Prayer, Michael Keane penetrates the fog of legend and reveals as
compelling a human character as any in American history.
