Teddy Jr.

This is coolbert: Canes Again!

Here is an American made from the same mold as was Raoul Monclar.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. The son of the famous President Theodore Roosevelt.

ONLY General officer to land with the first wave of troops on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Deputy commander of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division at the time.

"Tribute to a gallant officer who led from the front"

A man who led troops into battle in an unusual manner.

"He carried a cane in one hand and a Colt .45 automatic pistol in the other"

CANE IN ONE HAND, AUTOLOADING PISTOL IN THE OTHER!!

"Roosevelt, the assistant commander of Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Barton's 4th Infantry Division, had to fight for a role in the critical early hours of the 'longest day.' Barton was reluctant because of Roosevelt's physical condition. He had been diagnosed with arthritis in 1941, a condition resulting from his receiving a machine-gun bullet in the leg near Soissons in the summer of 1918."

Sounds so much like Raoul Monclar, does it not?!

Just prior to D-Day, his affirmity was complicated even further by additional illness!!

"And he had been recently felled by a fever that reached 103 degrees, developing into pneumonia."

"Barton voiced reservations about what the troops would think of being led by an officer who needed a walking stick, and Roosevelt replied, 'They'll figure that if a general is with them, it can't be that rough. It will steady the men to know I'm with them, to see me plodding along with my cane.'"

"Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. called [Roosevelt] the bravest man he knew."

"Gen. Roosevelt waved his cane while calmly directing traffic and exhorting the scared, wet troops to keep moving."

"His gallant leadership earned him the Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously after he died of a heart attack a month later."

A helluva man, his MoH was well earned.

It is well understood, that in many cases, the children of the upper classes in the U.S. are for the most part useless person, given over quite often to dissolute behavior. NOT in the case of the Roosevelts.

To illustrate my point, consider this:

"Elsewhere on the Normandy beaches that June morning in 1944 was Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.'s own son, Quentin Roosevelt II . . . who was returning to combat after being severely wounded in the North African campaign; Theodore Jr. and Quentin II were the only father-and-son pair known to have landed in Normandy on D-Day."

Here too, as reported by John Keegan in his book, "The Face of Battle", is an officer, carrying a cane, who did not fare so well:

"the officer who flogged to hard risked a bullet should he turn his back (and sometimes go it, as did Colonel Breyman from one of his grenadiers whom he had hit with his cane during the Battle of Saratoga)"

Hessian Colonel Breyman, disciplining with his cane a recalcitrant troop during the Battle of Saratoga, received a bullet in return and was killed!!

C'est le guerre dude!!

coolbert.