Only in the Course of Time: The Achievements of Thomas Blamey (Day Twenty-Four)

Today's featured article on Wikipedia examines the life of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey, GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED (24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951). Blamey "was an Australian general of the First and Second World Wars, and the only Australian ever to attain the rank of field marshal."

After the world wars, Blamey "returned to Melbourne, where he devoted himself to business affairs, to writing, and to promoting the welfare of ex-service personnel.... In the late 1940s Blamey became involved with The Association, an organisation similar to the earlier League of National Security, which was established to counter a possible communist coup. He was the head of the organisation until ill health forced him to stand down in favour of Morshead in 1950.

In December of 1949, Robert Menzies "became prime minister again..., and he resolved that Blamey should be promoted to the rank of field marshal, something that had been mooted in 1945.... The War Office [in London]... claimed that Blamey could not be promoted to field marshal because he was a retired officer." Yet, this proved untrue. So, "Menzies then restored Blamey to active duty. Blamey was duly promoted to field marshal in the King's Birthday Honours of 8 June 1950."

A few days afterwards, Blamey became seriously ill and was forced to receive his field marshal's baton from McKell in a bedside ceremony at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. Blamey died there of hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage on 27 May 1951.

This all reminds me of a recent book I finished: Logan's Run. Towards the end of the novel, there is this passage: "Dying young is a waste and a shame and a perversion. The young don't build. They use. The wonders of Man were achieved by the mature, the wise, who lived in this world before we did. There was an Old Lincoln after the young one…"

In short, great men are neither born, nor even reared; they are forged only in the course of time.