Brute Krulak

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Max Boot reviews Robert Coram’s Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, which describes how a poor Jewish immigrant became an all-American Marine Corps general:

Krulak was born in Denver in 1913. His father, Morris (originally Moschku), had emigrated from Russia in 1890. His mother, Bessie Zalinsky, had arrived two years earlier. Yet by the time Krulak entered the Naval Academy in 1930, he was telling everyone, Robert Coram reports, “that his great-grandfather had served in the Confederate army, that his grandfather had moved from Louisiana to Colorado to homestead 640 acres, and that his father had been born in the Colorado capital.” He claimed to be an Episcopalian, associating himself with the most socially prestigious religious denomination. His children were raised as Episcopalians; two even became ministers. (Another son, Charles, became Marine Commandant in the 1990s.)

Krulak was so determined to put his past behind him that when he married the daughter of a Navy officer from “an old, genteel East Coast family,” he did not invite a single one of his relatives to the wedding, for fear that his Jewishness would be discovered. Nor did he tell anyone that he had been married once before. At 16, he had eloped with his girlfriend. The marriage was annulled after just nine days but, if discovered, it would have kept Krulak from entering the Academy, which barred students who had ever been married.

Krulak figured, no doubt rightly, that in the starchy, snobbish officer corps of his day, a Jew with a failed marriage would not have gotten far. There was nothing he could do to hide his other handicap—his tiny size. When he entered the Academy he was 5’4” and 116 pounds. On his first day, Mr. Coram writes, “a towering midshipman looked down at him, smirked and said: ‘Well, Brute.’ ” Thus was born the nickname that Krulak loved.

He was so small that he did not meet the Marine Corps’ minimum size requirements. To get his commission, he made use of high-level connections. At Annapolis he had cultivated Holland Smith, who would go on to become a famous World War II general nicknamed “Howlin’ Mad.” Smith and future commandant Lemuel Shepherd would turbo-charge Krulak’s ascent.

So, what were Brute’s contributions to the Corps?

In 1937, while stationed in Shanghai, Krulak observed Japan’s use of landing craft with “large, flat bows” that opened on a beach, “allowing the boats to disgorge vehicles and personnel on dry land.” At the time the U.S. had nothing comparable. Krulak was a prime mover in getting the Marine Corps to adopt similar boats made by an obscure shipyard (Higgins Industries of New Orleans). The Higgins boat would make possible all of the American amphibious assaults of World War II, from Normandy to Iwo Jima.

Having a major role in the development of the landing craft would, by itself, have been enough to secure Krulak’s place as a military innovator. But he further burnished his reputation when, immediately after World War II, he pushed the Marine Corps to adopt helicopters ahead of the other services. He realized their potential not only to evacuate wounded and move supplies but also to outflank the enemy in battle. Krulak, still only a colonel, also played a key behind-the-scenes role in rallying Congress to defeat President Truman’s efforts to severely trim the Marine Corps’ size and mission. This led to Truman’s famous complaint that the Marine Corps has a “propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.”

Also, in 1967 he told President Johnson that if the US approach in Vietnam did not change, he would lose the war and the next election — which LBJ did not want to hear. Brute never got his fourth star, and he was forced to retire the next year.

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