Douglas MacArthur was born on January 26, 1880, in Little Rock, Arkansas, where MacArthur's father, Arthur, was stationed. His father had fought in the Civil War, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism, and served as military governor of the Philippines. By then, Douglas MacArthur was beginning his own distinguished military career.

A 1903 graduate of West Point, MacArthur rose rapidly in the military, beginning in the Philippines as an aide to his father. Douglas MacArthur became a captain in 1911, was promoted to major in 1914, and was on the general staff (the group that oversees all army operations) of the army when the United States entered World War I in 1917. MacArthur backed a plan to enlist state National Guard units to strengthen the small and inexperienced army, proposing to form a single battalion from volunteers of every state; he called it the Rainbow Battalion, and he argued that...