Soldier Poets Who Shaped Military Doctrine

Generals Forrest Harding and Buck Lanham

This photo of General Edwin Forrest Harding admiring a framed photo of the “Soldier” poem written by his friend General Charles T. “Buck” Lanham illustrates a close friendship between two soldier poets who used their writing skills to stimulate broader discussion of military doctrine.

The two infantry officers became friends in 1931. Together, they shaped the content of both the Infantry Journal and Infantry in Battle, the Army’s guide to infantry tactics, strategy, and leadership. Both men were proteges of General George C. Marshall, who stressed the importance of military history in planning for conflicts to come. Harding and Lanham expanded military journal readership and implemented reforms that increased engagement on professional military issues of the day. 

The namesake of West Point’s Harding Project was given the moniker “Gentle Knight,”  from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, by biographer Leslie Anders in the title of his 1985 Gentle Knight: The Life and Times of Major General Edwin Forrest Harding. Anders brings Harding to life as a cultured, creative spirit with a strong moral compass who held several commands, but whose most enduring legacy was his influence as editor of the Infantry Journal.

Harding was but one talented member of a superstar team assembled by Marshall at the Army’s Infantry School at then-Fort Benning who would go on to top Army positions. Harding’s ambitious readership expansion plans, clever wit and the loyal, like-minded team he built gave his work at the Infantry Journal an outsized imprint, where contributors were encouraged to speak frankly about the Army’s challenges. The last page of Anders’ book quotes Lanham’s eulogy for Harding: “Some day perhaps a military historian attempting to trace the evolution of military doctrine will discover Forrest Harding and the key role he played.” That day is now here with the advent of the Harding Project. 

In 1931, Major Harding enlisted Lieutenant Lanham, West Point class of 1924, to help edit Infantry in Battle and oversee the Infantry School’s instructional newsletter The Mailing List. By 1935, Lanham became Harding’s deputy editor with some behind-the-scenes support from Marshall. For the assignment, Lanham overcame objections from his boss at Fort Leavenworth, General Stuart Heintzelman, who believed First Lieutenant Lanham should focus on commanding a platoon and had no business interesting himself in any foreign or American doctrine beyond the platoon. Anders relates: “Do you understand that, Lanham?” “Yes, sir” came the obligatory response. But the transfer took place. 

United under Bradley, the two gifted writers, Harding and Lanham, would carry out their visionary plans to create a vibrant platform for examining, discussing and implementing modern doctrine aimed at positioning forces against future missions. Both Harding and Lanham were poets: Harding produced humorous takes on contemporary topics and personal rhymed tributes he gifted to their subjects, including Marshall and his wife, while Lanham published poetry in national outlets alongside his military career.  

Later, on the battlefield in France in 1944, Colonel Lanham became close friends with the writer Ernest Hemingway. The editor of the 1942 anthology Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time, Hemingway was an expert on warfare and had served in World War I and covered the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway had heard of Harding and told Lanham he seemed like a great guy. Our article “Pen and Sword: The Symbiosis between Ernest Hemingway and Maj. Gen. Buck Lanham” published in the September-October 2023 Military Review, discusses the intimate friendship between Hemingway and Lanham, and includes a vignette about elaborate pranks Harding played upon Lanham when they worked together at the Infantry Journal. Even at a remove of nearly 90 years, it is clear Harding knew how to rile up his friend, and not hard to imagine the steam bursting from Lanham’s ears as he succumbed to Harding’s ruses. The article notes Hemingway’s high regard for Infantry in Battle, which he read multiple times. Some lessons from Infantry in Battle about simplicity of orders, theory versus practice, and training scenarios versus reality on the ground resonate today. 

Hemingway and Lanham traded long, personal letters approximately twice per month over 17 years until Hemingway’s death in 1961. Meanwhile, another set of letters led to our book project called Best Pals, which will explore the friendship between Hemingway and Lanham and the risks they took for each other. General and Mrs. Lanham were friends of the author’s family for most of the 20th century, and were Greer’s father’s godparents. Greer, one of the authors of this piece, inherited hundreds of letters from the Lanhams discussing Hollywood, preparation for war, World War II, Hemingway, post-war America, and family.

Eileen and Greer are endeavoring to share these stories for posterity, in a work aimed at readers of both World War II and Hemingway. They extend best wishes to the Harding Project as well as to potential contributors—and look forward to hearing the stories that need to be told. 

Greer Rising and Eileen Martin are working on a book about the friendship between Ernest Hemingway and General Buck Lanham. The general was godfather to Greer’s father, and Greer inherited hundreds of letters from the Lanhams to his family dating from 1941 into the 1970’s. Greer has a BA in history from the University of Utah, where he received a regular Army commission in the Ordnance Corps. He served in the Army for four years including in the Middle East. Greer is a retired federal counterproliferation and border expert who provided strategic and operational security advice to military and law enforcement entities in the U.S. and overseas. Greer’s wife Eileen Martin is a retired senior executive of the Central Intelligence Agency. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a BS in political science, she worked in the Defense Attaché Office in Caracas, Venezuela before joining the CIA’s clandestine service where she served for thirty-one years directing foreign intelligence collection programs.