Which U.S. general said that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."?

In his farewell address to the United States Congress, General Douglas MacArthur proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away. General MacArthur had the opportunity to made a high profile “farewell address” to a joint meeting of both houses of Congress on April 19, 1951.

Eight days before the speech, he had been fired as the top commander of the American forces in the Korean War by President Harry Truman, essentially for having the gall to publicly criticize Truman’s denial of his request to nuke Red China (in retaliation for sending troops to fight against the U.S. in Korea).

Truman later famously explained: “I fired him because he would not respect the authority of the President…I did not fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was.”

Douglas MacArthur (January 1880 – April 1964) was an American five star general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the U.S. Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign.

His total military service to America covered approximately 52 years. When he died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. on April 5, 1964, of biliary cirrhosis, MacArthur was 84 years old.