General George Patton Museum and Center of Leadership Fort Knox, KY

Harry Hopkins, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt advisors, reflected on the victory of WWII. He could understand how American factories had scaled up production to manufacture tens of thousands of airplanes,  tanks,  and billions of bullets, but he had one question he could not answer. “How did it happen,” he asked his biographer, “that the United States, an unwarlike and unprepared country if ever there was one, was suddenly able to produce so large and so brilliant a group of military leaders competent to deal with situations that had never before existed in the world?”

How indeed?  What is leadership and how do you one identify it, bring it out,  nurture it? What lessons does can learn about leadership though the disciplines of an Army? to answer those questions, the Patton Center places  heavy emphasis on  the leaderships of General Patton himself (and many of his most notable quotes are emblazoned on the walls)  but the museum doesn’t stop there. Throughout, a multitude of lessons-learned on the battlefield inform that answer. As you walk through the exhibits and digest what you see,  you begin to see how military disciplines and the principals of command help define that elusive quality of leadership.  Truisms emerge, absolutes are proffered, methods suggested. Best of all, the messages here crossover from the military to the general public and help us understand how they apply to our own lives.  Which is exactly the conversation this museum hopes to stimulate.

Open:  April 1 – December 31

Hours:   Tuesday – Friday:  10am – 4:30pm

Closed:  Sunday, Monday