Movie Review: Silence Patton
November 19, 2016
I
drove home after viewing a “sneak peek” of Robert Orlando
(writer/director) and Mark Joseph’s (producer) documentary film about
General George Patton entitled SILENCE PATTON thinking about something
this film never intended when it was first conceived. I drove home
thinking we never learn from the past.
The
current events of the day, namely the election of Donald Trump, forces
one to make comparisons with General George Patton. Oh, I’m going to
hear it from veterans who will quickly say: “Donald Trump is no George
Patton.” Yes, that is true. But I kept thinking of the lessons learned
from the SILENCE PATTON film and I couldn’t help but parallel them with
what is going on today in America. The movie may portend America’s
future.
General
Patton was outspoken. He was no diplomat. He saw no romance in war as
military recruiters often sell to young men. He had the unflinching
nerve. He didn’t mince his words. He
spoke with bluntness. He was not
politically correct.
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Generals
Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley, Ridgway were obviously envious of
Patton’s tactical skills at war. Why Patton was so audacious as to
instruct his supply corps to pilfer petrol from other Army divisions.
Was he trying to steal all the glory?
Somehow
a report of when General Patton visited his wounded troops in the
European front and slapped one in the face and demanded he “man-up” and
return to the front lines got back to journalist Drew Pearson in the
U.S. Patton ended up being temporarily relieved of duty for his
insensitivity (if that can even be possible with all the atrocities of
war) and had to watch the D-day amphibious assault on the beaches at
Normandy strand thousands of troops due to tactical errors.
Political answers
The
political answers to the war were being drafted and agreed upon by Josef
Stalin from the Russian side, Sir Winston Churchill for the British and
Franklin D Roosevelt from the American side. They met at Yalta in the
Crimean peninsula in 1945.
Churchill
was wary of Stalin. As the film documents, Roosevelt sought to meet
with Stalin without Churchill’s presence. Eventually, the Allied Forces
allowed Russian troops to battle it out on the eastern front and in so
doing, left the Russians to capture eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia, a
terrible mistake that left Eastern Europe in the grip of another tyrant
for 44 more years.
Eventually, Patton was restored to command of the 3rd Army and led the assault on the southern end of a broad frontal assault against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
General
Patton, in command of 500,000 troops was within hours of reaching Berlin
and Prague, capitals of their countries. Patton was inexplicably
ordered to stand down.
Russia not
only annexed Eastern Europe but Berlin and the German heavy water
technology in Vermork that led to the Ruskies (pronounced roosklies)
developing the atom bomb.
World War
II on the Eastern Front was wrapping up. German generals signed an
unconditional surrender agreement on May 7, 1945. US generals would
return home to face hearings and inquiries about the war. As the film
indicates, General Patton was going to disclose all the screw-ups and
mistakes on the war front. Somebody didn’t want Patton’s bluntness to
reach Congress and the American people.
Here is
where I won’t reveal the movie’s end and how General Patton died of
injuries sustained from an automobile “accident” when a two-and-a-half
ton US army truck swerved in front of the Cadillac sedan in which Patton
was riding. Only General Patton sustained injuries, a broken neck.
But was the injury solely from the impact with the army truck? There is
more that this film reveals.
Ample evidence points to “motivations” for an assassination.
Fast forward
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Fast
forward to today. The stage is different. A politically incorrect
leader has emerged, President-elect Trump. Vladimir Putin is the new
Stalin (Russia having annexed Crimea and parts of the Ukraine in 2014).
It is said Putin wants to restore Russia to its glorious past, to bring
back the USSR. But Putin appears to be standing up to intimidation and
provocation by NATO.
There is
covert and overt opposition to Trump. Some factions obviously want to
silence his voice, the brusque voice that overcame the objections of his
own political party to become the popular candidate for President.
There are still those within his own party who object to his
straightforwardness. He rose to victory in the 2016 election by not
being politically correct.
The question that came to my mind is: will Donald Trump as the 45th
President of the United States be assassinated by conspirators from
within his own party as General Patton apparently was at the end of
WWII? By the way, Patton’s auto-truck crash eerily resembles what
happened to Princess Dianna in 1997.
Prior Presidential assassinations
In my
lifetime there have been two Presidential assassination attempts, one
successful the other not. In the JFK assassination, there were
attempts to blame it on the Russians. An alleged assassin, Lee Harvey
Oswald, was said to have defected to the Soviet Union in 1959. A former
US Marine, it appears Oswald may have been a double agent for the U.S.
Following the assassination Oswald fled to a theater in Dallas to meet
up with his handler, only to be arrested. He claimed he was a patsy.
The
dramatic movie JFK, produced in 1991 by Oliver Stone, had a strong
impact upon Americans almost 30 years after Kennedy’s assassination.
JFK earned over $200 million worldwide. JFK is still available but has
become an obscure film. [Amazon.com]
The
official records of the Assassination Records Review Board are sealed
from the public until 2029. But Wikipedia says all existing
assassination-related documents will be made public in 2017, fifty-four
years after the assassination.
The
attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan was 35 years ago (March 30,
1981). Most of the Millennials who reached young adulthood around the
year 2000 weren’t even born when the assassination attempt occurred and
have obviously no memory of it other than what was briefly told to them
in modern history classes.
Was the
guard dropped when President Reagan exited the Washington Hilton that
day as a stray bullet ricocheted into Reagan’s chest? Hinckley had
been stalking President Jimmy Carter prior to the Reagan assassination
attempt.
Over
160 million Americans out of a population of 325 million were born
before the Reagan assassination attempt. Over 200 million Americans
would have no memory of this event, as they are too young to recall it.
Due to generational ignorance, will we ever learn the lessons of the past?
SILENCE
PATTON has a lot of gripping drama in it. It was in production long
before Donald Trump was nominated for President. The film was not
originally intended to sway public opinion about Donald Trump.
The
film has been in the making for some time and there are some
pre-election reviews posted online. It will debut sometime next year
(2017) say its producers.
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