Growing Up Patton:
An Enduring Legacy of Learning, Adventure, Adaptability

It is easy to imagine the kinds of lessons that James “Jamie” Patton Totten might have been taught. As the son of George S. Patton Jr’s daughter Ruth Ellen and James Totten, whose army lineage dates back to the Revolutionary War, Totten has a distinguished military heritage.

One imagines formal tutorials in military history and admonishments to uphold the family name, but the reality of his upbringing was much richer and more interesting than that. His mother fostered a love of lifelong learning and sense of adventure in Totten and his siblings, Beatrice and Michael.

“My mother was into developing sensitivities to culture,” said Totten. He remembered a morning ritual of her reading books aloud to the children. “She read The Jungle Book and we’d had to imagine that world. It helped us develop a love of books and taught us to think,” said Totten.

Ruth Ellen and Michael recited poetry, including “John Brown’s Body,” back and forth, line by line.

Having been entranced by a movie version of Annie Get Your Gun, young Jamie was treated to the one of the Peer Gynt Suites.

“I was transfixed and thought it was beautiful. It set the stage for me to love music. It wasn’t as if she said let me teach you about music. If we liked a piece she would lead us to another great piece,” said Totten.

Ruth Ellen’s sense of adventure extended to the great outdoors where the children rode horses and learned to sail. In the tradition of her mother, Beatrice Patton, Ruth Ellen would take the children on excursions.

Jamie Patton Totten with his grandmother, Bee.

When the family lived in Turkey in the mid-1950s, Ruth Ellen flouted the conventions of the day and took the children’s Cub Scout troop to look at ancient Greek ruins in the countryside. At a time when American women in Turkey would not travel in the countryside unescorted, Ruth Ellen led the children through the ruins, hiding coins in the rubble for the children to find as they explored.

Totten recalled home movies that documented a trip the children made with their mother and grandmother Beatrice to the banks of the Potomac. The film shows Beatrice and the children searching for fossils on the clay banks. The adventure was inspired by Beatrice’s reading of a 16th century account of Captain James Smith’s voyage up the Potomac.

“Grandmother said, ‘Let’s go find it’ and we did. I came back with bushels of shark’s teeth,” recounted Totten.

He carries on the spirit of adventure by continuing to sail, ski, kayak and traveling by canoe. He has made several trips down the Yukon River (a 480 mile voyage).

Totten also shares the family’s legacy of service. He served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1983 and in the Army Reserve from 1983 to 1994. His honors include a Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm.

“When I retired there had been a James Totten on active duty since 1841,” he observed.

However, his family’s military heritage was conveyed with a light touch. “My mother didn’t glorify the family service or do anything but offer it as history,” said Totten. “My mother’s greatest lesson to me was to enjoy yourself. It doesn’t matter how unattractive your surroundings are, you can have fun if you look for what is unique. ‘Make the best of what you’ve got’ has always been the family ethos,” he noted.

Totten relished his years of service. “I grew up in the military and have served in the military and I can’t imagine not being in it. I have had such an interesting life compared to those who haven’t served. I can’t imagine living in the same town all my life or the same country. Serving my country was an amazing opportunity that was extremely rewarding,” said Totten.

The Tottens, 1952. Left to right: Jamie, Mike, Ruth Ellen, Jimmie and Bea.

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Patton Museum Foundation Welcomes Trustee Lieutenant General Steven L. Arnold

After a distinguished military career that included commanding the Third United States Army and the 10th Mountain Division, LTG (ret) Steven L. Arnold brings a wealth of experience and expertise to his new role as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Patton Museum Foundation. Equally important, he brings the conviction backed by his motto, “Mission first. People always.” ‘There is no cookie cutter road to success in the military. You have to have your own convictions and mine are that you get the job done, but take care of the people doing it,” said Arnold. Arnold grew up in a small rural community in central Illinois. As a sophomore in high school he wrote his congressman expressing a desire to attend West Point. He passed the entrance examine, completed his education and vowed to stay in the army as long as it was “fun and challenging.”

“Even after two tours in Vietnam it was fun and challenging. I retired after 35 years of service,” said Arnold. He received a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy, an M.A. from Auburn University and an M.S. from the University of Southern California. He is a graduate of the Air Force Command and Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.

He held a variety of command and staff positions in the Continental United States, Europe, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Vietnam, including an assignment as Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.

Other key assignments include: Commander, 10th Mountain Division (Light), Fort Drum, New York; Deputy Commanding General, First Army, Fort Meade, Maryland; Operations Officer, Third Army and U.S. Army Forces Central Command, Saudi Arabia; Assistant Division Commander, 2d Infantry Division, Camp Casey, Korea; and Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Training, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia.

“Taking command of the Third Army was a humbling experience. I was in awe of the history and legacy of the great unit and challenged to keep up the legacy of the Third Army,” said Arnold. It was a challenge he met with grace and skill. Arnold will bring a down to earth leadership style and the tenacity to solve problems and achieve organizational objectives to his role as a trustee.

“Aside from a splendid career of high achievement, Steve is the epitome of the phrase, ‘an officer and a gentleman!’ All that we do on behalf of the Patton Museum will be elevated by Steve Arnold’s participation.” said Richard D. Chegar, MG (ret), chairman of the board of The Patton Museum Foundation.

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In His Own Words:
Excerpts from General Patton’s Address to the Troops, East Anglia, June 1944

Prior to the invasion of northern France, General Patton applied his unique brand of motivation in an address to the Third Army. His willingness to engage the imagination of the troops, sense of destiny and “go get em”attitude made an impression on the men that they would not soon forget.

You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American...

All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamn it, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war...

...One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious firefight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, Sir.' I asked, 'Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?' He answered, 'Yes Sir, but the goddamned wire has to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!' Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable...

There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won’t have to cough, shift him to the other knee... No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son of-a-G _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _-B _ _ _ _ named Georgie Patton!'

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What Made Patton a Legendary General?

At the height of his fame, a United Press radio report said of General George S. Patton Jr.:

A fiction writer couldn’t create him. History itself hasn’t matched him. He’s colorful, fabulous. He’s dynamite. On a battlefield, he’s a warring, roaring comet ... When this war is ended ... one of the vivid most human pages will be the saga of General Patton.

For decades scholars have pondered the question of what made Patton Jr. such a unique figure in history. The answers are numerous and varied. Preparation may be part of the puzzle. Patton knew history, saw himself as a party to it and took concrete steps to be ready to make his mark. He walked the back roads of Normandy in 1913 armed with a Michelin map and the conviction that he would one day fight a major battle there. As a cadet he wrote the following list in the back cover of a textbook:

1. Tactically aggressive (loves a good fight)
2. Strength of character
3. Steadiness of purpose
4. Acceptance of responsibility
5. Energy
6. Good health and strength

Author Carlo D’Este explored the question of the General’s skill in the book Patton: A Genius for War.

He wrote: What made Patton so remarkable was his willingness to take risks and make crucial life and death decisions no one else would dare. For all his military accomplishments, George C. Scott was right when he asserted that what made Patton unique was his individualism, his understanding that “You live and you die alone—he knew it and he lived it... But foremost about Patton, I believe this man was an individual in the deepest sense of the word.”

Patton was an authentic and flamboyant military genius whose entire life was spent in preparation for a fleeting opportunity to become one of the greatest captains of history. No soldier in the annals of the U.S. Army ever worked more diligently to prepare himself for high command than did Patton However, it was not only his astonishing breadth of professional reading and writing that separated Patton from his peers, but that intangible, instinctive sense of what must be done in the chaos and heat of battle: in short, that special genius for war that has been granted to only a select few...

Combining hard work, study and fearlessness, Patton stood at the head of his army, urging his solders on.

Pfc David S. Terry never forgot hearing Patton, a towering figure in full dress, speak to the troops at the Third Army headquarters in Knutsford, England. “I was 18 years old and this was the first time I had ever heard anyone talk as I thought a warrior would. I thought, this man Patton is a warrior, and I’m glad we are on the same side,” said Terry.

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The General and I

by Paul Posey

Jamie Patton Totten (left) presenting a book about his grandmother to Paul Posey.

It was December 1956 and I was 11 years old. My father, a career army officer, was being sent to England. As we traveled there via the S.S. United States, he told me that he was to be stationed in Knutsford, England.

He had never mentioned the war to me before, but this time he was excited that he was going back to the place where General George S. Patton, Jr. and his Third Army were stationed before being sent to France in August 1944. Listening to him talk about being a recon scout in the Ardennes roused my curiosity.

When we arrived in Knutsford and got settled in, my father took me to see the former Headquarters of General Patton, the place where the General made his famous speech. I went to school on the depot post where that very Third Army and all of its supplies were stationed.

As I heard my father’s stories, I began to wonder who Patton was and what made him the great soldier that my father so revered. I began to read about the General, and at that moment began a lifetime of admiration, love and study of this great man that continues to this day.

After a year in England, we were sent to Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1958, on our way to the Brussels World’s Fair, my father retraced the steps of his beloved Third Army and we traveled to many of General Patton’s battle sites including Nancy and Metz.

We stopped along the way in Luxemburg to visit the grave of General Patton and so many of his soldiers. It was a sad but wonderful site. I continued my studies of the General and still wondered just what made him so great.

Many Generals of our Army have been great leaders, but what was there about this man that made so many want to follow him to hell and back if need be? He had to have something that was a “cut above.” What was it that set him above the others?

General Patton, unlike so many, knew that our Army was a conscripted Army, 65 percent of whom were drafted. How do you make men who just so recently were farmers, mechanics, etc. become a powerful fighting force? How do you get them to be proud of themselves and want to not only fight the enemy, but to close with and kill as many as they can? How can one man motivate so many to achieve so much?

He was constantly training his men, giving speeches and pep talks. He was seen everywhere and would turn up on a moment’s notice. He wanted to see his men dressed perfectly and in top physical shape. He constantly motivated his men to achieve the unachievable. His men saw in him the unique ability to motivate them to be proud of themselves. He taught them and made them believe that they were winners. His message was:

You follow me boys and I will make you winners. Follow me and more of you will come home, and fewer of you will become causalities. The faster we move, the faster we kill the enemy; the quicker we can go home, and the more of you will live.

I will never let you down; I will always be there and you can count on me to lead the way. I will never ask you to do what I will not do. When the bombs fall and the bullets fly, I will be leading rather than back in the rear. Together we will be victorious, and you will be proud and strong. Someday you will say, “I served with that Dammed Patton and his Third Army and I would do it again.”

On the last day of the last battle, we will be there, strong and proud. You will know that on that last day when the bugle blows and they lay you to rest, that you were part of, and served with, the best Army and best General that ever lived.

My father’s stories and history tell the tale. Patton and his men accomplished the impossible. Patton’s Third Army became the most feared group in the war, especially by the Germans. They were the best and were led by the best, General George S. Patton, Jr.

Paul Posey served in the Special Forces as a green beret in Vietnam.

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