Frustrated Ambition: General Vicente Lim and the Philippine Military Experience, 1910–1944

Abstract

Richard B. Meixsel wanted to write a biography of Brig. Gen. Vicente Lim for a number of reasons. Primarily, it was because Lim was the first Filipino graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army Command and Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College. In addition, Lim was considered the most capable Filipino officer, who possessed a unique vision for establishing the military of a newly sovereign nation, and he has been largely forgotten—as are almost all of the Filipino soldiers—in American-centric military histories of the Philippines. Since these soldiers constituted the bulk of the forces that fought there in the 1941–1942 period, however, Meixsel desires to provide the history of the Filipino forces to paint a more realistic portrait of the Philippines during the American period of occupation as well as during and immediately after the war. In particular, Meixsel wants to illustrate the agency of the Filipinos; but the problem with this goal is first illustrated in the chapter on U.S. military defense planning for the Philippines in the 1920s. Lim and other Filipino leaders are barely seen since they were not included in any of the defense planning. Perhaps it is not possible to illustrate Filipino agency if they was no agency, at least at that level? Again, when Douglas MacArthur was hired as military adviser, Lim was in the background and not really seen. President Manuel Quezon and other Filipino political elites wanted MacArthur as the military adviser to build a Philippine army because of his stature, a stature that no Filipino officer could match. Filipino agency was thus demonstrated, but not at Lim's level. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the situation was similar. During the defense planning for the war, Filipino military officers were hardly present; ultimately, neither were Filipino officials. Agency was still in the hands of American policy makers in Washington, D.C., then the U.S. Army, then MacArthur and the U.S. Military Mission, and finally Quezon, not the small number of highly qualified officers who could have been tapped for their talent.