Episode 22: General MacArthur You're Fired!!! (Part 2) The actual Firing

The People's Volunteer Army descends on North Korea and pushes the United Nation's forces back to below the 38th Parallel. All of General Macarthur's reassurances vanish and Truman is stuck with tough decisions. Does he take the war to the Chinese or contain it on the Korean Peninsula? His Field General wants to bomb Manchuria and do battle with the Chinese. Truman says No.

What will ensue is a battle of wills over the direction of American War Policy on the ground between a President and one of the most celebrated military minds our country had produced in the 20th century. 

When it was all said and done MacArthur would lose that test of wills, but be heralded as a hero here at home. While Truman would win the battle over policy and later, perhaps, the judgement of history. In the short term, it was a public relations disaster. 

Either way both men show what real leadership entails, the willingness to make tough, unpopular decisions for the greater good even when the consequences are tough or career ending for you in the short term. A lesson leadership today needs to learn.