I Have Walked These Fields Before

To General George Patton, reincarnation was not a ‘belief’ but a fact. Once, Patton’s nephew asked him if he believed in reincarnation. Patton’s response was, “I don’t know about other people, but for myself there has never been any question. I don’t just think it; I know there are places I’ve been before, and not in this life”. When Patton was very young he rigged a wagon to smash the turkey shed while playing ‘war’. Asked where he got such an idea, Patton explained that during the Middle Ages John the Blind of Bohemia defeated the Turks (whom the poor turkeys in the shed were supposed to signify) using the first known armored vehicle. Pressed further as to how Patton knew this he replied, “I was there”

In 1937, while riding with his beloved wife Beatrice, Patton was brutally kicked by a horse. His leg was broken in three places and he nearly died from the accident. After Patton was kicked he went into what can only be described as shock. While in that dream-like state had a vision of himself dying as a Viking and an escort appeared to take him to Valhalla, the Norse mythological Warrior Heaven of the afterlife. Then, one of the escort shook his head and they set Patton down. Just as suddenly, the vision vanished. For Patton, the concept of Valhalla, a warrior’s afterlife, was real. It was a place where warriors waited to be called for incarnation to serve a mission, a mission that would help shape mankind’s destiny for the better. Later, during World War 2 a military aide in 1944 wrote, “Patton earnestly believes in a warrior’s Valhalla…He honestly thinks it is to the glory of a man to die in the service of his country“.

-Excerpted from the essay, “General George Patton And Reincarnation” by Andy Jackson.