Letter

By: George C. Marshall

Date: December 4, 1933

Source: Marshall, George C. Letter to Major General Stuart Heintzelman, December 4, 1933. In Bland, Larry I., ed. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall; The Soldierly Spirit, December 1880–June 1939. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981, 409–13.

About the Author: General George C. Marshall (1880–1959) was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A descendant of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, he graduated from Virginia Military Institute and entered the United States Army in 1902. Over the course of his long and distinguished career Marshall served with distinction in World War I (1914–1918).

Introduction

Until the beginning of the Cold War in the mid-1940s the United States had no tradition of a standing army. The United States did not have any credible security threats in its...