'Patton'

There are several things that I regret don't exist anymore:

The town mad scientist and the popular general.

Truth be told, there's a good chance that towns never had actual mad scientists and that this is a product of pop culture.

But the popular army general did exist and it exists no longer.

It's one thing to have a household name like Arnold Schwarzkopf did during the first Middle East excursion. But there was once a time when the men at the highest level of military service were being elected president.

In fact, the first, George Washington, was a general of an army. It didn't stop going through Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and Zachary Taylor. If you do a little research, a vast majority of our presidents have done quite a bit of service, only recent inclusions putting forth minimal service. Remember, Jack Kennedy's P-boat was blown out of the water in World War II.

In fact, the longest stretch to not have a president with military service was from William Toward Taft (could you imagine his pudgy body being missed by a bullet?) through Franklin D. Roosevelt. That's six presidents and a ton of years since the high commander had no military experience.

This is not about presidents, it's about generals. The last general to be elected to the highest of posts is Dwight Eisenhower, who was good buddies with George S. Patton.

During World War II, a number of high-profile names became everyday fixtures in the American lexicon. Ike, Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Bradley and Clark. These people were superstars and heroes. Everyone loved them and most men wanted their sons to become them.

We elected them to posts in our government. We named plans after them. And we immortalized them in film, warts and all.

Patton had a lot of warts. Still, I don't think he was a bad guy. More of a strong guy. Per the slapping incident in which he slapped an enlisted man for cowardice (this actually happened twice ... but the movie just included one incident). It makes sense, however. Here's a guy who's scared shitless whilst all around him are guys that are just as scared, but they have missing limbs, life-threatening injuries and all other sorts of problems.

Patton may have been a son of a bitch, but he was the kind of son of a bitch that you wanted on your team.

The general of this ilk is no more. There aren't enough wars and the fact of the matter is that war is just too uncool. And that's OK, too.