Douglas MacArthur — Duty, Honor, Country

On May 12, 1962, Douglas MacArthur went back to West Point to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award. He was eighty-two. He had graduated first in the class of 1903, served as superintendent, commanded in two world wars and Korea, and had been eleven years out of uniform since Truman relieved him.

He spoke to the corps of cadets in the mess hall. The speech turned on the academy's motto: "Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be." He closed by telling them that in his dreams he still heard the crash of guns and the mournful mutter of the battlefield, and that his last conscious thoughts would be of the Corps.

He never went back. He died in April 1964 and was buried in Norfolk, Virginia.

The cap gives him away before the face does — the famous crushed crown, the gold-leaf braid on the visor rendered in white, the eagle badge. The silhouette is a solid navy that runs off the bottom of the sheet. The three words sit at the very top in the largest red serif on the page, and the rest of the sentence steps down beneath them in seven lighter lines that cross the cap and the jaw. The eye starts at the top and does not skip a line.