Brilliant tactical leader. His Long Patrol with the Raider Battalion on Guadalcanal reflected everything he had learned from operations in Haiti and Nicaragua or China. The destruction of the Japanese supplies, harrasment and attrition of the Japanese forces, and sucessful supply/communications of the Raiders without clear or secure LoC is a understudied but masterful action.
How Edson would have been as a senior General I cant say. Some masters of tactics or operations fail at the stratigic level. Others prove equal as commanders of squads or armies. Edsons experience with the Communists in China would have given him a unique perspective on fighting the VC/NVA. But, as a commander of armies he would have had to have been as masterful of politics as he was at leading companies & battalions.
There were other Marine officers of the same era as Edson who might have filled the same role from bush to palace as you seem to be aiming at. Hanneken is worth a look. Krulak was undeniablly brilliant in the upper levels, tho his experience was much less in the brush or insurgent war. A number of US Army officers were not far off from Edsons ability, tho again few to none could present his tactical experience.
