Farewell speech before Congress - 1951
I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-bye.
Five star general Douglas MacArthur had repeatedly not been able to refrain from gainsaying the policies of his commander-in-chief. President Harry S. Truman accordingly relieved him of his post as Commander of United Nation forces in Korea in 1951. MacArthur's popularity was such that his return to the United States was, rather, a hero's triumphant return. His dying military star never shined more brilliantly than at his farewell speech before the joint Senate and House session. His eloquence was never more evident.