Joseph Stilwell the parents of five children, including Brigadier General Joseph, Jr., (West Point 1933) served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Stilwell later taught at West Point, and attended the Infantry Advanced Course and the Command and General Staff College. During World War I, he was the U.S. Fourth Corps intelligence officer and helped plan the St. Mihiel offensive. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his service in France. Stilwell is often remembered by his sobriquet, "Vinegar Joe", which he acquired while a commander at Fort Benning, Georgia. Stilwell often gave harsh critiques of performance in field exercises,
Joseph Stilwell by Stilwell in his capacity as Chief of Staff. An outraged Stilwell began to call Chiang "the little dummy" or "Peanut" in his reports to Washington, ("Peanut" originally being intended as a code name for Chiang in official radio messages) while Chiang repeatedly expressed his pent-up grievances against Stilwell for his "recklessness, insubordination, contempt and arrogance" to U.S. envoys to China. Stilwell would press Chiang and the British to take immediate actions to retake Burma, but Chiang demanded impossibly large amounts of supplies before he would agree to take offensive action, and the British refused to meet their previous pledges