Q: What do you suppose West Point meant to him? What did it mean to
graduate and to have been part of that elite corps?
PETILLO: If you had been in love with flags and bugles since your first
memories, then to graduate from West Point would surround yourself with
everything that you'd fantasized about all your life. I mean to go there today
is enough to sort of inspire martial feelings among those of us who don't
usually have martial feelings. I think he loved the ceremony. I think he
loved the uniform he wore.
It was one of those points in his life where he could sort of stop and
say, "This is it." And of course, he talks about West Point with great, great
fun for the rest of his life and wears his old West Point robe one West Point
robe after another throughout his life. He watches the football team with
great attention. He loves being there as Superintendent in the years right
after World War I. West Point is magic to Douglas MacArthur.
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