Omar Bradley

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Omar Bradley February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981) was one of the main U.S. Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during the World War II and a General of the Army of the United States Army. He was the last surviving five star officer of the United States. On May 5, 2000, the United States Postal Service issued the Distinguished Soldiers stamps in which Bradley was honored.

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• The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
  • Speech given on November 11th, 1948. Reproduced in Omar Bradley's Collected Writings, volume 1 (1967).

• I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking a world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow….
  
  Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war from Korea to also include Red China. The course of action often described as a limited war with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the critical strategic prize.
  
  Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.
  • testimony before the Senate Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations, May 15, 1951.—Military Situation in the Far East, hearings, 82d Congress, 1st session, part 2, p. 732 (1951). On p. 753, Bradley repeats his conviction that it is “a wrong war at the wrong place and against a wrong enemy.”

• (On military character) Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that yoy would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all inclusive thing. If a man has character everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader.
  • 19stars by Edgar F. Puryear Jr.