On February 27, 1942, Brigadier General Ralph McTyeire Pennell, the commander of the 27th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, California, replied to a letter written by a U.S. Congressman, Clinton P. Anderson, who questioned the rationale behind assigning a constituent to the infantry, instead of a position where his “fine education” could ostensibly be better utilized. In his eloquent and forceful response, General Pennell challenges the notion that some individuals should be spared the dirty and dangerous work of war.
Dear Mr. Anderson:
Your letter of February 17, to the Adjutant General, concerning Private Robert H. Lister, Company A, 165th Infantry, has been sent to me. You state: “I am wondering if there has been some mistake in his assignment to Fort Ord. Robert Lister has a fine education, has a Masters Degree, is about ready for a Doctor’s Degree, is an expert Spanish student, a skilled archeologist, and had been an instructor at the University of New Mexico.”
In this division of 22,000 men, I receive many letters similar to yours from parents, relatives, friends and sweethearts. They do not understand why the men who had a good law practice at home cannot be in the Judge Advocate Generals Department, why the drug store manager cannot work in the post hospital, why the school teacher cannot be used for educational work.
They are willing for somebody else to do the hard, dirty work of the fighting man so long as the one they are interested in can be spared that duty. If the doctors in the future are to have the privilege of practicing their profession, if archeologists are to investigate antiquity, if students are to have the privilege of taking degrees, and professors the privilege of teaching in their own way, somebody must march and fight and bleed and die and I know no reason why the students, doctors, professors and archeologists shouldn’t do their share of it.
You say,“It strikes me as too bad to take that type of education and bury it in a rifle squad,” as though there were something low or mean or servile in being a member of a rifle squad and only morons and ditch diggers should be given such duty. I know of no place red-blooded men of intelligence and initiative are more needed than in the rifle or weapons squad. In this capacity, full recognition is given to the placing of men so that they may do the work most beneficial to the unit of which they are a part. Whenever men are needed for a particular duty, the record of all men having the required skills and qualifications are considered.
I have examined the records of Private Lister and it is fairly complete. I know he holds the 100-yard dash and broad jump records in the Border Conference; that he was president of his fraternity; that his mother was born in Alabama and his father in Michigan; that his father lives at the Burlington Hotel in Washington and I suspect asked you to do what you could to get his son on other duty.
It is desirable that all men, regardless of their specialty, shall learn by doing; how hard it is to march with a pack for 20 miles; how to hold their own in bayonet combat; and how to respect the man who really takes it, namely the private in the rifle squad. If Private Lister has special qualifications for intelligence duty, he will be considered when a vacancy occurs in a regimental, brigade, or division intelligence section. You can’t keep a good man down in the Army for long. Every commander is anxious to get hold of men with imagination, intelligence, initiative, and drive.
Because you may think I’m a pretty good distance from a rifle squad, I should like to tell you I have a son on Bataan peninsula. All I know of him is that he was wounded on January 19. I hope he is back by now where the rifle squads are taking it, and I wish I were beside him there.
I have written you this long letter because in your high position you exercise a large influence on what people think and the way they regard the Army. It is necessary for them to understand men must do that which best helps to win the war and often that is not the same as what they do best.
Sincerely yours,
Ralph McT. Pennell
Brig. Gen., USA
Commanding
General Pennell commanded the 27th Division until October 1942, when he requested relief due to age (59) and was reassigned to the army’s Field Artillery School. He died in 1973. His son, Captain Robert Pennell, survived his injury in Bataan and the death march, and was awarded a Silver Star. Clinton P. Anderson, a representative and, later, senator from New Mexico, was appointed Secretary of Agriculture by Truman near the end of the war. And what of Private Lister? He returned from the Pacific War to go on to a long and distinguished career as an archeologist, specializing in early Native American cultures.
Originally published in the October 2011 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
