These five American generals and admirals did things that played with the thin line between cunning and crazy, but they were awesome at their jobs, so most everyone looked the other way.
1. An admiral dressed up in a ninja suit to test security.
Vice Adm. John D. Bulkeley was an American hero; let’s get that straight right out of the gate. He fought to attend Annapolis and graduated in 1933, but was passed over for a Naval commission due to budget constraints. So he joined the Army Air Corps for a while until the Navy was allowed to commission additional officers. In the sea service, he distinguished himself on multiple occasions, including receiving the Medal of Honor for his performance in the Pacific during World War II.
War. Hero.
But he was also kind of crazy. As the commander of Clarksville Base, Tennessee after the war, Bulkeley was worried that his Marines may not have been properly protecting the classified areas. So, he would dress up in a ninja suit, blacken his face, and attempt to sneak past the armed Marines. Luckily, he was never shot by any of the sentries.
2. George Custer was obsessed with his huge pack of dogs.
Onetime Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (yes, the Custer of “last stand” fame) had a “crazy cat lady” number of dogs, with between 40 and 80 animals at a time. It’s unknown exactly when he began collecting the animals, but while in Texas in 1866, he and his wife had 23 dogs, and the pack just grew from there.
Custer’s love of the animals was so deep that his wife almost abandoned their bed before he agreed to stop sleeping with them. On campaign, he brought dozens of the dogs with him and would sleep with them on and near his cot. Before embarking on the campaign that would end at the Little Bighorn, Custer tried to send all the dogs back home. This caused his dog handler, Pvt. John Burkman, to suspect that the campaign was more dangerous than most.
Some of the dogs refused to leave, and so Burkman continued to watch them at Custer’s side. Burkman had night guard duty just before the battle, and so he and a group of the dogs were not present when Native American forces killed Custer and much of the 7th Cavalry. It’s unknown what happened to the dogs after the battle.
3. Curtis LeMay really wanted to bomb the Russians.
Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay is a controversial figure. On the one hand, he served as the commander of Strategic Air Command and later as the Air Force Chief of Staff. He shaped American air power as it became one of the most deadly military forces in the history of the world, primarily due to its strategic nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, he really wanted to use those nukes. He advocated nuclear bombs being used against North Vietnam and drew up plans in 1949 to destroy 77 Russian cities in a single day of bombing. He even proposed a nuclear first strike directly against the Soviet Union. Any attempt to limit America’s nuclear platform was met with criticism from LeMay. Discussing his civilian superiors, he was known to often say: “I ask you: would things be much worse if Khrushchev were Secretary of Defense?”
4. LeMay’s successor really, really wanted to bomb the Russians.
Gen. Curtis LeMay may have been itchy to press the big red button, but his protege and successor was even worse. LeMay described Gen. Thomas Power as “not stable” and a “sadist.”
When a Rand study advocated limiting nuclear strikes at the outset of a war with the Soviet Union, Power asked him, “Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards… At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win.”
5. Anthony Wayne made his soldiers fight without ammunition.
In the Revolutionary War, bayonets played a much larger role than they do today. Still, most generals had their soldiers fire their weapons before using the bayonets.
Not Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne. George Washington sent him to reconnoiter the defense at Stony Point, New York, during the Revolutionary War. There, Wayne decided storming the defenses would be suicide and suggested that the Army conduct a bayonet charge instead.
Shockingly, this worked. On the night of July 15, 1779, the men marched to Stony Point. After they arrived and took a short rest, the soldiers unloaded their weapons. Then, with only bayonets, the men slipped up to the defenses and attacked. Wayne himself fought at the head of one of the attacking columns, wielding a half-pike against the British. Wayne was shot in the head early in the battle but continued fighting, and the Americans were victorious.
