"In recent years there has been much discussion about the Army's refocusing on largescale combat operations, command at the division echelon, and the transformation of the National Guard from a strategic to an operational reserve. One book from the Dusty Shelves of interest for these issues is John Kennedy Ohl's Minuteman: The Military Career of General Robert S. Beightler, the story of a wrongly forgotten commander from World War II.
Beightler commanded the Ohio National Guard's 37th Infantry Division from 1940 to 1945. He was the only Guard division commander in the Second World War to lead his unit from mobilization to demobilization. Beightler remained in command because his skills, and his ability to learn from experience, carried him through the unforgiving general officer assessment process instituted in 1940 by the Army's chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, and insulated him against the fierce anti-Guard prejudice of Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, the head of Army Ground Forces. Sent to the Pacific in 1942, the 37th operated in jungle, urban, and mountainous terrain, building a reputation as one of the best Army divisions in that theater. After the war, Beightler was one of two Guard general officers offered a commission as a Regular Army general officer.
This achievement remains obscure for several reasons. Beightler never published a memoir. He was a competent but not flamboyant officer, commanding at an echelon that attracted little public attention during and after the war. In the Pacific theater, fame gravitated towards either the Marine Corps or Douglas MacArthur. Postwar, the Army favored its European experiences for inspiration and historical study. Everybody knows Patton. Everybody should know about Beightler, too…"
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