This leads to another point. In several of the most celebrated commentaries written by higher commanders on the nature of generalship, the statement is made rather carelessly that to be capable of great military leadership a man must be something of an actor. If that were unqualifiedly true, then it would be a desirable technique likewise in any junior officer that he too should learn how to wear a false face, and play a part which cloaks his real self. The hollowness of the idea is proved by the lives of such men as Robert E. Lee, W. T. Sherman, George C. Marshall, Omar N. Bradley, Carl A. Spaatz, William H. Simpson, Chester A. Nimitz, and W. S. Sims. As commanders, they were all as natural as children, though some had great natural reserve, and others were warmer and more outgiving. They expressed themselves straightforwardly rather than by artful striving for effect. There was no studied attempt to appear only in a certain light. To use the common word for it, their people did not regard them as "characters." This naturalness had much to do with their hold on other men.

Such a result will always come. He who concentrates on the object at hand has little need to worry about the impression he is making on others. Even though they detect the chinks in the armor, they will know that the armor will hold.

On the other hand, a sense of the dramatic values, coupled with the intelligence to play upon them skillfully, is an invaluable quality in any military leader. Though there was nothing of the "actor" in Grant, he understood the value of pointing things up. To put a bold or inspiring emphasis where it belongs is not stagecraft, but an integral part of the military fine art of communications. System which is only system is injurious to the mind and spirit of any normal person. One can play a superior part well, and maintain prestige and dignity, without being under the compulsion to think, speak and act in a monotone. In fact, when any military commander becomes over-inhibited along these lines because of the illusion that this is the way to build a reputation for strength, he but doubles the necessity that his subordinates will act at all times like human beings rather than robots.

Coupled with self-control, recollection and thoughtfulness will carry a man far. Men will warm toward a leader when they come to believe that all the energy he stores up by living somewhat within himself is at their service. But when they feel that this is not the case, and that his reserve is simply the outward sign of a spiritual miserliness and concentration on purely personal goals, no amount of restraint will ever win their favor. This is as true of him who commands a whole service as of the leader of a picket squad.

To speak of the importance of a sense of humor would be unavailing if it were not that what cramps so many men isn't that they are by nature humorless but that they are hesitant to exercise what humor they possess. Within the military profession, it is as unwise as to let the muscles go soft and to spare the mind the strain of original thinking. Great humor has always been in the military tradition. The need of it is nowhere more delicately expressed than in Kipling's lines:

My son was killed while laughing at some jest, I would I knew What it was, and it might serve me in a time When jests are few.

Marcus Aurelius, Rome's soldier philosopher, spoke of his love for the man who "could be humorous in an agreeable way." No reader of Grant's Memoirs (one of the few truly great autobiographies ever written by a soldier) could fail to be impressed by his light touch. A delicate sense of the incongruous seems to have pervaded him; he is at his whimsical best when he sees himself in a ridiculous light. Lord Kitchener, one of the grimmest warriors ever to serve the British Empire, warmed to the man who made him the butt of a practical joke. There is the unforgettable picture of Admiral Beatty at Jutland. The Indefatigable has disappeared beneath the waves. The Queen Mary had exploded. The Lion was in flames. Then word came that the Princess Royal was blown up. Said Beatty to his Flag Captain "Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our ... ships today. Turn two points nearer the enemy." Admiral Nimitz, surveying the terrible landscape of the Kwajalein battlefield for the first time, said gravely to his Staff: "It's the worst devastation I've ever seen except for that last Texas picnic in Honolulu." There is a characteristic anecdote of General Patton. He had just been worsted by higher headquarters in an argument over strategy. So he sat talking to his own Staff about it, his dog curled up beside him. Suddenly he said to the animal: "The trouble with you, too, Willy, is that you don't understand the big picture." General Eisenhower, probably more than any other American commander, had the art of winning with his humor. He would have qualified under Sydney Smith's definition: "The meaning of an extraordinary man is that he is eight men in one man; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined."

There is hardly a soldier, marine, or bluejacket who has been long in battle but can tell some tale of an experience under fire when the pressure became almost unbearable, and then was suddenly relieved because somebody made a wisecrack or pulled something that was good for a laugh. At Bastogne the American headquarters was being shelled out of its position in the Belgian Barracks. The Commanding General called in his Chief Signal Officer and asked when it would be convenient to move. Said Lt. Col. Sid Davis, "Right now, while I've got one line left and you can still give the order." When the garrison was surrounded, and higher headquarters requested a description of the situation, the young G-3 of the operation, Col. H. W. O. Kinnard, radioed: "Think of a doughnut: we're the hole."

Who hasn't heard of the top kick who got his men forward by yelling: "Come on you ——! Do you want to live forever?" Both the Army and the Marine Corps claim him for their own, and it is possible that he was twins.

If the American fighting man did not have an instinctive feeling for the moral value of that kind of thing, the story would be long since buried, for it is as ancient as the other tale which ends: "That was no lady; that was my wife."



CHAPTER TEN

MAINSPRINGS OF LEADERSHIP

To what has been said, just a few things should be added so that the problem of generating greater powers of leadership within the officer corps may be seen in its true light.

The counselor says: "Be forthright! Be articulate! Be confident! Be positive! Possess a commanding appearance!" The young man replies: "All very good, so far as it goes. I will, if I can. But tell me, how do I get that way?" He sees rightly enough the main point, that these things are but derivatives of other inner qualities which must be possessed, if the leader is to travel the decisive mile between wavering capacity and resolute performance.

So the need is to get down to a few governing principles. Finding them, we may be able to resolve finally any argument as to whether leadership is a God-given power, or may be bestowed through earnest military teaching.

Two great American commanders have spoken their thoughts on this subject. The weight of their comment is enhanced by the conspicuous success of both men in the field of moral leading.

Said Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations: "I concur that we can take average good men and, by proper training, develop in them the essential initiative, confidence, and magnetism which are necessary in leadership. I believe that these qualities are present in the average man to a degree that he can be made a good leader if his native qualities are properly developed; whether or not he becomes a great leader depends upon whether or not he possesses that extra initiative, magnetism, moral courage, and force which makes the difference between the average man and the above-average man."

Said Gen. C. B. Cates, Commandant of the Marine Corps: "Leadership is intangible, hard to measure and difficult to describe. Its qualities would seem to stem from many factors. But certainly they must include a measure of inherent ability to control and direct, self-confidence based on expert knowledge, initiative, loyalty, pride, and a sense of responsibility. Inherent ability obviously cannot be instilled, but that which is latent or dormant can be developed. Other ingredients can be acquired. They are not easily taught or easily learned. But leaders can be and are made. The average good man in our service is and must be considered a potential leader."

There are common denominators in these two quotations which clearly point in one main direction. When we accent the importance of extra initiative, expert knowledge and a sense of responsibility, we are saying in other words that out of unusual application to duty comes the power to lead others in the doing of it.

The matter is as simple and as profound as that, and if we will consider for but a moment, we will see why it could hardly be otherwise.

No normal young man is likely to recognize in himself the qualities which will persuade others to follow him. On the other hand, any man who can carry out orders in a cheerful spirit, complete this work step by step, use imagination in improving it, and then when the job is done, can face toward his next duty with anticipation, need have no reason to doubt his own capacity for leadership.

The psychologists assure us that there is a sound scientific basis for what enlightened military trainers have long held to be true—that the first-class follower and the leader are one and the same. They say that this is literally true, and that their tests prove it so.

But it does not follow that every man can be taught to lead. In the majority of men, success or failure is caused more by mental attitude than by mental capacity. Many are unwilling to face the ordeal of thinking for themselves and of accepting responsibility for others. But the man determined to excel at his own work has already climbed the first rung of the ladder; in that process he perforce learns to think for himself while setting an example to those who are around him. Out of application to work comes capacity for original and creative progress. The personality characteristics, emotional balance, etc., which give him excellence in those things which he does with his own brain and hand will enable him to command the respect, and in turn, the service of other men.

To this extent, certainly leadership can be learned! It is a matter of mastering simple techniques which will give more effective expression to the character and natural talents of the individual.

Said one of this Nation's great political leaders: "There is no more valuable subordinate than the man to whom you can give a piece of work and then forget it, in the confident expectation that the next time it is brought to your attention it will come in the form of a report that the thing has been done. When this self-reliant quality is joined to executive power, loyalty and common sense, the result is a man whom you can trust."

Yes, indeed, and that is as it should be. For while no man can be sure of the possibilities of his influence over other men, every man knows by his own conscience when he is putting forth his best effort, and when he is slacking.

It is therefore not an arbitrary standard for measuring leadership capacity in men which puts the ability to excel in assigned work above everything else. The willingness and ability to strive, and to do, are best judged by what we see of men in action. If they are indifferent to assigned responsibilities, they are bad risks for larger ones, no matter how charming their personalities or what the record says about their prior experience and educational advantages. Either that proposition is both reasonable and sound, or Arnold Bennett was singing off key when he said: "I think fine this necessity for the tense bracing of the will before anything worth doing can be done. It is the chief thing that distinguishes me from the cat by the fire."

Love of work is the sheet-anchor of the man who truly aspires to command responsibilities; that means love of it, not for the reward, or for the skill exercised, but for the final and successful accomplishment of the work itself. For out of interest in the job comes thoroughness, and it is this quality above all which distinguishes the willing spirit. The willingness to learn, to study and to try harder are requisite to individual progress and the improvement of opportunity—the process that Thomas Carlyle described as the "unfolding of one's self." Thus it can be taken as an axiom that any man can lead who is determined to become master of that knowledge which an increased responsibility would require of him; and by the same token, that to achieve maximum efficiency at one's own working level, it is necessary to see it as if from the perspective of the next level up. To excel in the management of a squad, the leader must be knowledgeable of all that bears upon the command of a platoon. Otherwise the mechanism lacks something of unity.

Mark Twain said at one point that we should be thankful for the indolent, since but for them the rest of us could not get ahead. That's on the target, and it emphasizes that how fast and far each of us travels is largely a matter of free choice.

Personal advancement, within any worthwhile system, requires some sacrifice of leisure, and more careful attention to the better organization of one's working routine. But that does not entail heroic self-sacrifice or the forfeiting of any of life's truly enduring rewards. It means putting the completion of work ahead of golf and bridge. It means rejecting the convenient excuse for postponing solution of the problem until the next time. It means cultivating the mind during hours that would otherwise be spent in idleness. It means concentrating for longer periods on the work at hand without getting up from one's chair. But after all, these things do not require an extraordinary faculty. The ability of the normal man to concentrate his thought and effort are mainly the product of a personal conviction that concentration is necessary and desirable. Abbe Dimnet said: "Concentration is supposed to be exceptional only because people do not try and, in this, as in so many things, starve within an inch of plenty." And as to the mien and manner which will develop from firm commitments, another wise Frenchman, Honore Balzac, added this: "Conviction brings a silent, indefinable beauty into faces made of the commonest human clay." Here is a great part of the secret. It is in the exercise of the will that the men are separated from the boys, and that the officer who is merely anxious for advancement is put apart from the one who is truly ambitious to succeed in his life calling. Even a lazy-minded superior, in judging of his subordinates, will rarely mistake the one condition for the other.

When within the services we hear the highest praise reserved for the man "with character," that is what the term means—application to duty and thoroughness in all undertakings, along with that maturity of spirit and judgment which comes by precept, by kindness, by study, by watching, and above all, by example. The numerous American commanders from all services who have been accorded special honor because they rose from the ranks have invariably made their careers by the extra work, self-denial and rigor which the truly good man does not hesitate to endure. The question facing every young officer is whether he, too, is willing to walk that road for the rewards, material and spiritual, which will surely attend it.

There is of course that commonest of excuses for rejecting the difficult and taking life easy. "I haven't time!" But for the man who keeps his mind on the object, there is always time. Figure it out! About us in the services daily we see busy men who somehow manage to find time for whatever is worth doing, while at the adjoining desks are others with abundant leisure who can't find time for anything. When something important requires doing, it is usually the busy man who gets the call.

Of the many personal decisions which life puts upon a service officer, the main one is whether he chooses to swim upstream. If he says yes to that, and means it, all things then begin to fit into place. Then will develop gradually but surely that well-placed inner confidence which is the foundation of military character. From the knowing of what to do comes the knowing of how to do, which is likewise important. Much is conveyed in few words in Army Field Forces' "Brief on Practical Concepts of Leadership." It is stressed therein that the preeminent quality which all great commanders have owned in common is a positiveness of manner and of viewpoint, the power to concentrate on means to a given end to the exclusion of exaggerated fears of the obstacles which lie athwart the course. Every word of that should be underscored, and above all, what it says about the need for affirmative thinking, and concentrating on how the thing can be done. The service is no place for those who hang back and view through a glass darkly. The man who falls into the vice of thinking negatively must perforce in time become fearful of all action; he lacks the power of decision, because it has been destroyed by his habit of thought, and even when circumstances compel him to say yes he remains uncommitted in spirit.

But the shadow should not be mistaken for the substance. Positiveness of manner, and redoubtable inner conviction stem only from the mastery of superior knowledge, and this last is the fruit of application, preparation, thoroughness and the willingness to struggle to gain the desired end.



CHAPTER ELEVEN

HUMAN NATURE

In the history of American arms, the most revealing chapter as to the nature of the human animal does not come from any story of the battlefield but from the record of 23 white men and two Eskimos who, on August 26, 1881, set up in isolation a camp on the edge of Lady Franklin Bay to attempt a Farthest North record for the United States.

The Expedition under command of First Lt. A. W. Greeley, USA, expected to be picked up by a relief ship after 1 year, or 2 years at most. Its supply could be stretched to cover the maximum period. But the winters were so unduly harsh that the rescue mission could not break through the ice to keep the rendezvous. During the first year, two members of the party had set a new Far North mark. The party as a whole—3 officers, 19 enlisted men, 1 civilian surgeon and the 2 natives—had survived a winter closer to the Pole than civilized men had ever lived before. So doing, they had remained in reasonably good personal adjustment to each other, despite the Arctic monotony. The discipline of the camp had been strict. Rules of subordination, sanitation, work-sharing and religious observance had been maintained, without major friction occurring in the life of the group. Lectures were given regularly, and schools were organized. Though it is recorded that the men became melancholy, sleepless, and irritable because of the long Arctic night, temper was still in so good a state that an honor system within the camp meted out extra duty to any man using an oath.

The comradely feeling remained alive within the party throughout the first winter, though morale had its first blow when Greeley issued an unwise order forbidding enlisted men to go more than 500 yards from the base without permission. The strain was beginning to tell, but there was no fatal rift in the working harmony of the group while supply and hope remained reasonably full.

But June of the second year came and passed, and no relief ship arrived. In August, Greeley decided on a retreat, intending to fall back on bases which were supposed to hold food stores. Thereafter disaster was piled upon disaster, most of it having to do with the lack of food, and the varying animal and spiritual reactions of men to a situation of utmost desperation. When the Greeley Expedition was at last rescued at Cape Sabine on June 22, 1884, by the third expedition—the Revenue Cutter Bear and the Thetis under Commander Winfield S. Schley, USN—only seven men remained alive. Even in these, the spark of life was so feeble that their tent was down over them and they had resigned themselves to death. Two died soon after the rescue, leaving five. Most of the other 20 had perished of slow starvation, but not all. Some had been shot. Others had met death with utmost bravery trying to save their failing comrades.

All that happened to Greeley's party during the months of its terrible ordeal is known because of a diary which records the main things—the fight of discipline against the primal instincts in men, the reversion of the so-called civilized man to his real type when he knows that death is at his elbow, the strength of unity which comes of comradeship, and also the weakness in some individuals which makes it impossible for them to measure up to honor's requirements.

Men are of all kinds. Some remain base, though given every opportunity to develop compassion. Others who may appear plodding and dull, and have been denied opportunity, still have in them an immortal spark of love for humanity which gives them an unbreakable bond with their fellows in the hours of crisis.

What the case history of the Greeley Expedition proves is that in the determining number of men, the potential is sound. Given a wise, understanding leadership, they will stand together, and they will either persuade the others to go along, or they will help break them if they resist. If that were not the truth of the matter, no military commander in our time would be able to make his forces keep going into battle.

Until the end, discipline was kept in Greeley's force. But this was not primarily due to Lieutenant Greeley, the aloof, strict disciplinarian who commanded by giving orders, instead of by trying to command the spirits and loyalties of men. That any survived was due to the personal force and example of Sgt. (later Brig. Gen.) David L. Brainard, who believed in discipline as did Greeley, and supported his chief steadfastly, but also supplied the human warmth and helping hand which rallied other men, where Greeley's strictures only made them want to fight back. Brainard was not physically the strongest man in the Expedition, nor necessarily the most self-sacrificing and courageous. But he had what counted most—mental and moral balance.

Among the most fractious and self-centered of the individuals was the camp surgeon, highly trained and educated, and chosen because he seemed to have a way among men. Greeley was several times at the point of having him shot; the surgeon's death by starvation saved Greeley that necessity.

Among the most decent, trustworthy, and helpful was Jens, the simple Eskimo, who died trying to carry out a rescue mission. He had never been to school a day in his life.

There were soldiers in the party whom no threat of punishment, or sense of pity, could deter from taking advantage of their comrades, rifling stores, cheating on duty and even stealing arms in the hope of doing away with other survivors. When repeated offense showed that they were unreformable, they were shot.

But in the greater number, the sense of pride and of honor was stronger even than the instinct for self-preservation, though these were average enlisted men, not especially chosen because their records proved they had unusual fortitude.

Private Schneider, a youngster who loved dogs and played the violin, succumbed to starvation after penning one of the most revealing deathbed statements ever written: "Although I stand accused of doing dishonest things here lately, I herewith, as a dying man, can say that the only dishonest thing I ever did was to eat my own sealskin boots and the part of my pants."

Private Fredericks, accused in the early and less-trying period of meanness and injustice to his comrades, became a rock of strength in the weeks when all of the others were in physical collapse or coma, and was made a sergeant because of the nobility of his conduct. Yet this man's ambition was to be a saloonkeeper in Minneapolis.

There is still an official report on file in the Department of the Army which describes Sergeant Rice as the "bravest and noblest" of the Expedition. He is identified with most of its greatest heroisms. The man was apparently absolutely indomitable and incorruptible. He died from freezing on a last forlorn mission into the Arctic storm to retrieve a cache of seal meat for his friends. Fredericks, who had accompanied him, was so grief-stricken at the tragedy that he contemplated dying at his side, then reacted in a way which signifies much in a few words, "Out of the sense of duty I owed my dead comrade, I stooped and kissed the remains and left them there for the wild winds of the Arctic to sweep over."

Such briefly were the extremes and the middle ground in this body of human material. At one end were the amoral characters whose excesses became steadily worse as the situation blackened. At the other were Brainard and Rice—good all the way through, absolute in integrity and adjusted perfectly to other men. In between these wholly contrasting elements was the group majority, trying to do duty, with varying degrees of success. That would include Greeley, strong in self-discipline but likewise brittle. It would include Lieutenant Lockwood, a lion among men for most of the distance, but totally downcast and beaten in the last dreadful stretch, Israel, the youngest of the party who won the love of other men by his frankness and generosity, Sergeant Gardiner who was always ready to share his scraps of food with whoever he thought needed them more, Private Whisler who died begging his comrades to forgive him for having stolen a few slices of bacon, and Private Bender who alternated between feats of heroism and acts of miscreancy.

Other than their common experience, there was probably nothing unusual about this group of men. They were an average slice of American manpower as found in the services of that day, and in the fundamentals, men have changed but little since. Those who had the chance to study American men under the terrible rigor of Japanese imprisonment during World War II give an analysis not unlike the chronicles of the Greeley party. In certain of the prisoners, character, and sanity with it, held fast against every circumstance. In others, some of whom had been well educated and came from gentle homes, the brute instinct was as uppermost as in an East African cannibal.

From such crucibles as these, even more than from the remittent stresses of combat in war, comes the clearest light on the inner nature of man, insofar as it needs to be understood by the officer who may some day lead a force into battle.

Snap judgment on the data might lead to the conclusion that every individual is exactly according to his own mould, that influence from without can not catalyze character, and that hence training has little to do with winning loyalty and instilling dutifulness. That would be as radically false as to believe that training, when properly conducted, can make all men alike and can infuse all ranks with the desire for a high standard. The vanity of that hope can be read out of what happened to the force at Cape Sabine. But the positive lesson glows even more strongly. The good Sergeant, Brainard, wrote of his Lieutenant, Lockwood, that he "loved him more than a brother." It was the service which taught him the worth of that attachment; Brainard's superb courage developed initially out of his unbounded admiration for Lockwood's dauntlessness, and in time the copyist outdistanced the model. Emotionally, Greeley and Brainard were quite unlike. One was a New England Puritan, the other a hard-boiled sergeant. But they became as one in the interests of the force; service training had made that possible.

Psychologists tell us that every sense impression leaves a trace or imprint of itself on the mind, or in other words, what we are, and what we may become, is influenced in some measure by everything touching the circumference of our daily lives. The imprints become memories and ideas, and in their turn build up the consciousness, the reason and finally the will, which translates into physical action the psychological purpose. In the process, moral character may be shaped and strengthened; but it will not be transformed if it is dross in the first place. That is something which every combat leader has learned in his tour under fire; the man of whom nobody speaks good, who is regarded as a social misfit, unliked and unliking, of his comrades, will usually desert them under pressure. There are others who have the right look but will be just as quick to quit, and look to themselves, in a crisis; underneath, they are made of the same shoddy stuff as the derelict, but have learned a little more of the modern art of getting by. Leadership, be it ever so inspired, can not make a silk purse from a sow's ear. But as shines forth in the record of Greeley and his men, it can reckon with the fact that the majority is more good than mean, and that from this may be developed the strength of the whole. In the clutch, the men at Cape Sabine who believed in the word "duty," and who understood spiritually that its first meaning was mutual responsibility, remained joined in an insoluble union. That was the inevitable outcome, leadership doing its part. The minority had no basis for organic solidarity, as each of its number was motivated only by self-interest. Goodwill and weakness may be combined in one man; bad will and strength in another. High moral leading can lift the first man to excel himself; it will not reform the other. But there is no other sensible rule than that all men will be approached with trust, and treated as trustworthy until proved otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.

To transfer this thought to even the largest element in war, it will be seen that it is not primarily a cause which makes men loyal to each other, but the loyalty of men to each other which makes a cause. The unity which develops from man's recognition of his dependence upon his fellows is the mainspring of every movement by which society, or any autonomy within it, moves forward.

It is a common practice to say "Men are thus-and-so." Nothing is more attractive than to make some glittering generalization about the human race, and from it draw a moral for the instruction of those who work with human material. But from all that we have learned from the experience of men under inordinate pressure, either in war or wherever else military forces have been sorely tested, it would be false to say either that the desire for economic security or the instinct for self-preservation is the driving force in every man's action. To those who possess the strength of the strong, honor is the main shaft; and they can carry a sufficient number of the company along with them to stamp their mark upon whatever is done by the group. No matter what their personal strength, however, they too are dependent on the others. There is no possibility of growth for any man except through the force, and by the works of those about him, though the manner of his growth is partly a matter of free choice. To most men, the setting of the good example is a challenge to pride and a stimulus to action. To nearly every member of the race, confidence and inspiration come mainly from the influence which living associates have upon them. That training is most perfect which takes greatest advantage of this truth, employing it in balance toward the development of a spirit of comradeship and the doing of work with a manifestly military purpose. Peace training is war training and nothing less. There is no other basis for the efficient operation of military forces even when the skies are clear. But no commander or instructor can convince men of the decisive importance of the object if he himself regards it as only an intellectual exercise.

The Army's "Brief on Practical Concepts of Leaderships," published 1 January 1950, well points out the desirability of leaders realizing it is vain to expect that training can bring men forward uniformly. The better men advance rapidly; the men of average attainments remain average; the below-average lose additional ground to the competition. In consequence, the chance for balance in the organizational structure depends upon the leader progressing in such close knowledge of his men that those who are strong in various aspects of the team's general requirements compensate for the weaknesses of others, irrespective of MOS numbers. It is not less essential that the followers know each other and prepare themselves to complement each other. Obviously, this cannot be done when personnel changes are so frequent that those concerned have no chance to see deeper than the surface.

Even when to do any labor meant sapping the small store of energy deriving from a few ounces of food each day, Greeley's men kept alive the spark of morale and mutual support by maintaining a work schedule, until the day came when there was no longer a man who could stand. To fight off despondency, they held to a nightly schedule of lectures and discussions in their rude shelters, until speech became an agony because of throats poisoned by eating of caterpillars, lichens and saxifrage blossoms. In their worst extremity, Private Fredericks, unlettered but a man of great common sense and moral power, became the doctor, cook and forager for the party.

Men do not achieve a great solidarity, or preserve it, simply by being together. Their mutual bonds are forged only by doing together that which they have been made convinced is constructive. Their view of its importance is usually contingent upon what others tell them, and upon a continuing emphasis thereof. Unity is all at one time a consequence of, and a cause and condition for great accomplishment. Toward that end, it is neither vital nor desirable that all members of the group coincide in their motives, ideas and methods of expression. What is important is that each man should know, and to a reasonable extent incorporate into his own life the thoughts, desires and interests of the others. Such sentiments, fixed by repetition, remain as a habit during the life of the group, and provide the base for disciplined action. But when men are not thus drawn together and the cord of sympathy remains unstrung, there is no basis for control, nor any element of contact by which the group may identify itself with some larger entity and profit by transfusion of its moral strength.

The absence of a common purpose is the chief source of unhappiness in any collection of individuals. Lacking it, and the common standard of justice which is one of its chief agents, men become more and more separate units, each fighting for his own rights. Yet paradoxically, if an organic unity is to develop within any body of free men, drawn from a free society to serve its military institutions, and if the fairest use is to be made of their possibilities, the processes of the institution must embody respect for the dignity of the individual, for his rights, and not less, for his desire for worthwhile recognition. The profile of every man depends upon the space which others leave him. "Of himself," said Napoleon, "a man is nothing." But every man also contributes with his every act to the level of what his group may attain. One of the foremost leaders in the United States Navy in World War II said this about the integrity of personality: "Every person is unique. Human talents were never before assembled in exactly the same way that they have been put together in yourself. Nothing like you ever happened before. No one can predict with accuracy how you will grow in your particular combination of skills if allowed complete freedom of movement." If there is one word out of place in that statement, it is "complete;" no one has complete freedom but a buccaneer, and it is for the exercise of it that organized society swings him from a gibbet. It is only when personal freedom of action operates within an area limited by the rights and welfare of others that subordination, in its best sense, takes place. To direct a body of men toward the acceptance of this principle, so that thereby they may attain social coherence as a group and greater strength of personal character, is the most solid contribution that an officer can make to the arms of his country.

He can succeed in this without being godlike in wisdom or pluperfect in temper. But it is necessary at least that he be interesting, and that he know how to get out of his own tracks, lest he be over-run by his own organization. Whatever his rank, it is impossible for any man to lead if he is himself running behind. This bespeaks the need of constant study, the constant use of one's personal powers and the exercise of the imagination. As men advance, that which was good soon ceases to be good simply because something better is possible. Once men begin to acquire a sense of organization, they also come to take the measure of those who are over them. They will then move instinctively toward the one man who possesses the greatest measure of social energy. The accolade of leadership is not inherent in the individual but is conferred on him by the group. It does not always follow that a man can develop an influence with others which is proportionate to his talents and capacity for work. Leadership in work is a main requirement, but if the group does not warm toward the appointed leader, if its members can not feel any enthusiasm about him, they will be hypercritical of whatever he does.

History confirms, and a study of the workings of the human mind supports one proposition which many of the great captains of war have accepted as a truism. "There are no bad troops: there are only bad leaders." Taking on percentage what we already know of our average American raw material, as it had proved itself in every war, and as it has been studied in such a laboratory as the camp at Cape Sabine, no exception can be taken to that statement. On the other hand, we know equally well that leadership can be taught and it can be acquired. Much of our best material lies fallow, awaiting a hand on the shoulder, and the touch of other men's confidence, before it can step forward. This is not because men with a sound potential for leading must necessarily have an outward air of modesty among their major virtues, but because a man—particularly a young man—cannot gain a sense of his power among his fellows except as they give him their confidence, and vivify his natural desire to be something better than the average. There is no indication that at any stage of his career Gen. George S. Patton was an outwardly modest man. But in reviewing the milestones in his own making, he underscored the occasion when General Pershing, then commanding the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, supported Lieutenant Patton's judgment against that of a major. These are his words: "My act took high moral courage and built up my self-confidence." It would seem altogether clear, however, that Pershing had more than a little to do with it. Col. W. T. Sherman had to be kindled by the warm touch of Mr. Lincoln and steeled by the example and strong faith of Gen. U. S. Grant before he could believe in his own capacity for generalship. We all live by information and not by sight. We exist by faith in others, which is the source toward knowing greater faith in ourselves.

About the elements of human nature, it is good that an officer should know enough that he will be able to win friends and influence people. But it is folly to believe that he should pursue his studies in this subject until he habitually looks at men as would a scientist putting some specimen under a powerful microscope.

Self-consciousness is by no means a serious fault in anyone confronted by a new set of responsibilities, and working among new companions. There is scarcely an officer who has not felt it, particularly in the beginning, before he is assured in his own presence. But if the greater part of the officer corps were ever to become absorbed in the business of taking men apart to see what makes them tick, thereby superinducing self-consciousness all down the line, an irremediable blight would come upon the services. There is no need to look that deeply. What matters mainly is that an officer will know how men are won to accept authority, how they can be made to unify their own strength, how they can be helped to find satisfaction and success in their employment, how the stronger men can be chosen for preferment from among them, and finally, how they can be conditioned to face the realities of combat.

The chronicles of effective military leadership date back to Gideon and his Band. Therefore any notion that it is impossible for an officer to make the best use of his men unless he is armed with all available research data and can talk the language of the philosopher and modern social scientist is little more than a twentieth century conceit. To seek and use all pertinent information is commendable, but truth comes of seeing all things in their natural proportion. To know more than is necessary blunts one's own weapons. The application of common sense to the problem is more vital than the possession of an inexhaustible store of data which has no practical bearing upon the matter at hand. As was said by a philosopher three centuries ago: "It is remarkable in some that they could be so much better if they could but be better in some thing."



CHAPTER TWELVE

GROUP NATURE

In the same way that knowledge of individual nature becomes the key to building strength within the group, an understanding of crowd nature is essential to the preservation of the unique power within the group, particularly under conditions of extreme pressure.

Whereas the central object of a training discipline is to raise a safeguard against any military body reverting to crowd form under trial by fire, history shows that paralysis both of leadership and of the ranks, obliviousness to orders, forgetfulness of means of communication, disintegration and even panic are the not uncommon reactions of military forces when first entering into battle.

From Bunker Hill and Brandywine down to Pearl Harbor and the fight at Kasserine Pass, the American battle record shows that our own troops are by no means immune to these ill effects, and that our peace time training needs, therefore, always to be reappraised with a critical eye to the main issue.

Any of these unsteadying reactions can be prevented, or at least minimized, by training which anticipates the inevitable disorders of battle—including those who are of material sort as well as the disorders of the mind—and acclimates men to the realities of the field in war. All may be averted if leadership is braced to the shock and prepared to exercise strong control. Indeed, it is a truth worthy of the closest regard that the greater number of the disarrangements which take place during combat are due to leadership feeling a tightening of the throat, and a sticking of the palate, and failing to do that which the intellect says should be done.

To take any action, when even to think of action is itself difficult, is the essential step toward recovery and the surmounting of all difficulty. It is not because of a babel of mixed voices and commands that military bodies not infrequently relapse into helplessness and stagnation in the face of the enemy. From that cause there may occur an occasional minor dislocation. Their total effect is trivial compared to the failures which come of leadership, at varying levels, failing promptly to exercise authority when nothing else can resolve the situation. Among the commonest of experiences in war is to witness troops doing nothing, or worse, doing the wrong thing, without one commanding voice being raised to give them direction. In such circumstance, any man who has the nerve and presence to step forward and give them an intelligent order in a manner indicating that he expects to be obeyed, will be accepted as a leader and will be given their support.

For this reason, under the conditions of modern battle, the coherence of any military body comes not only of men being articulate all down the line but of building up the dynamic power in each individual. It is a thoroughly sound exercise in any unit to give every man a chance to take charge, and give orders in drill, or other limited exercises, once he had learned what the orders mean. By the same token, it is good practice for the junior leader to displace a file in a training exercise, and become commanded for a time, to sharpen his own perspective.

Progress comes of making the most of our strengths rather than looking for ways to repair weaknesses. This is true in things both large and small. The platoon leader who permits himself to be bedeviled by the file who won't or can't keep step cannot do justice to the ambitions of the 10 strongest men beneath him, upon whom the life of the formation would depend, come an emergency. To nourish and encourage the top rather than to concentrate effort and exhaust nerves in trying to correct the few least likely prospects is the healthy way of growth within military organization.

Not all men are fitted by nature for the precisions of life in a barracks. They may accept its discipline while not being able to adjust to its rhythm. The normal temptation to despair of them needs to be resisted if only for the reason experience has proved they sometimes make the best men in combat. There are many types which fit into this category—the foreigner but recently arrived in America, the miner who has spent most of his years underground, the boy from the sticks who has known only the plough and furrow, the woodsman, the reservation Indian, and the men of all races who have had hard taskmasters or other misfortune in their civilian sphere, and expect to be hurt again. It is not unusual for this kind of material to show badly in training because of an ingrained fear of other men. At the same time, they can face mortal danger. To harass the man who is trying, but can't quite do it, therefore cuts double against the strength of organization. It may ruin the man; it may also give his comrades the feeling that he isn't getting a decent break.

The military crowd requires, above all, maturity of judgment in its leaders. It cannot be patronized safely. Nor can it be treated in the classroom manner, as if wisdom were being dispensed to schoolboys. When it has been remiss, it expects to catch unshirted hell for its failings, and though it may smart under a just bawling out, it will feel let down if the commander quibbles. But any officer puts himself on a skid, and impairs the strength of his unit, if he takes to task all hands because of the wilful failings of a minority. Strength comes to men when they feel that they are grown up and as a body are in control and under control, since it amounts to the same thing; it is only when men unite toward a common purpose that control becomes possible. In this respect, the servant is in fact the master of the situation, fully realizes it, and is not unprepared to accept proportionate responsibility.

It is a sign of a good level of discipline in a command when orders are given and faithfully carried out. But it is a sign of a vastly superior condition when men are prepared to demand those orders which they know the situation requires, if it is to be helped. No competent subordinate sits around waiting for someone else to give impulse to movement if his senses tell him that things are going to pot. He either suggests a course of action to his superior, or asks authority to execute it on his own, or in the more desperate circumstances of the battlefield, gives orders on his own initiative. To counsel any lesser theory of individual responsibility than this would leave every chain of command at the complete mercy of its weakest link, and throughout the general establishment, would choke the fount of inspiration which comes of the upward thrust of energy and of ideas.

This latter characteristic in the masses of men composing any organization is the final statement of moral responsibility for success. Within military forces, an element of command is owned by every man who is doing his duty with intelligence and imagination. That puts him on the side of the angels, and the pressure which he exerts is felt not only by his subordinates but by those topside who are doing less. Many a lazy skipper has snapped out of it and at last begun to level with his organization because he felt the hot breath of a few earnest subordinates on his neck. Many a battle unit has held to ground which it had been ready to forsake because of the example of an aid man who stayed at his work and refused to forsake the wounded. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was thinking on these things when he said during World War II: "There is among the mass of individuals who carry rifles in war a great amount of ingenuity and efficiency. If men can talk naturally to their officers, the product of their resourcefulness becomes available to all." But the art of open communication requires both receiving and sending, and the besetting problem is to get officers to talk naturally to men.

In the seventeenth century Marshal Maurice de Saxe rediscovered cadenced marching which, along with the hard-surfaced roads of France, had remained buried since the time of the Romans. He reinstituted precision marching and drill within military bodies, and by that action changed European armies from straggling mobs into disciplined troops. The effects of that reform have been felt right down to the present. Baron von Steuben, the great reorganizer of the forces in George Washington's Army, simply built upon the principles which de Saxe had set forth one century earlier. These two great architects of military organization founded their separate systems upon one controlling idea—that if men can be trained to think about moving together, they can then be led to move toward thinking together. De Saxe wanted keen men, not automatons; in that, he was singular among the captains of his day. He started the numbering of regiments so that they would have a continuing history and thereby benefit from esprit de corps. He was the first to see the great importance of battle colors and to standardize their use. Of his own military opinions he wrote: "Experts should not be offended by the assurance with which I deliver my opinions. They should correct them; that is the fruit I expect from my work."

Now to take a look at von Steuben. He was the drillmaster of the American Revolution, but he was also its greatest student of the human mind and heart. He wrote the drill regulations of the Army, and as he wrote, committed them to memory. Of his labors he said: "I dictated my dispositions in the night; in the day I had them performed." But he learned the nature of the human material for which he thought these exercises were suited by visiting the huts of the half-clad soldiers of Valley Forge, personally inspecting their neglected weapons and hearing from their own lips of their sufferings. His main technic in installing his system was to depend upon the appeal of a powerful example; to allay all doubt of exactly what was wanted, he formed a model company and drilled it himself. He was a natural man; troops warmed to him because of an unabashed use of broken English and his violently explosive use, under stress, of "gottam!" which was his only quasi-English oath. In countenance he was strikingly like Gen. George S. Patton and there were other points of resemblance. A private soldier at Valley Forge was impressed with "the trappings of his pistols, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, his strikingly martial aspect." But while he liked to dine with great men at his table, he chose to complete his list with officers of inferior rank. Once at Valley Forge he permitted his aides to give a dinner for junior officers on condition that none should be admitted that had on a whole pair of breeches. This was making the most of adversity. While wearing two stars and serving as Inspector General of the Army, he would still devote his whole day to the drilling of a squad of 10 or 12 men to get his system going. To a former Prussian associate he wrote this of Americans: "You say to your soldier, 'Do this!' and he doeth it; but I am obliged to say, 'This is the reason that you ought to do that,' and then he does it."

This was the key to the phenomenal success of his system. Within 6 weeks after he began work at Valley Forge, the Continental Army was on a new footing of self-confidence. His personal diligence in inquiring into the conduct of all officers toward their men, and his zeal in checking the accoutrement and carriage of every soldier established within the Army its first standard of inspection. Officers began to divide their scant rations with their men so that they would look better. But though he drilled the men of Valley Forge in marching and maneuver, Steuben paid no attention to the manual of arms, and let that wait until after he had gone into battle with these same forces. He explained why in these words: "Every colonel had introduced a system of his own and those who had taken the greatest pains were naturally the most attached to their work. Had I destroyed their productions, they would have detested me. I therefore preferred to pay no special attention to this subject until I had won their confidence." To take hold at the essential point and postpone action on the relatively unimportant, to respect a worthy pride and natural dignity in other men, and finally, to demonstrate that there is a better way in order to win men's loyalty and to use loyalty as the portal to more constructive collective thought—all of these morals shine in this one object lesson. The most revealing light upon the character of Steuben comes of the episode in which he had one Lieutenant Gibbons arrested for an offense, which he later learned another had committed. He then went before the Regiment. It was raining hard, but he bared his head and asked Gibbons to come forward. "Sir," he said, "the fault which was committed might, in the presence of an enemy, have been fatal. Your Colonel tells me you are blameless. I ask your pardon. Return to your command."

Mistakes will occur. Tempers will go off half-cocked even among men of good habit. Action will be taken on impulse rather than full information, despite every warning as to its danger. But no officer who has ever done serious injustice to a subordinate can do less than Steuben did, if he wants to keep respect. Admiral Halsey wrote about how he had once relieved one of his Captains in battle, found months later that he had misjudged him, and then tried by every means within his power to make redress.

The main connecting link between the perfecting of group action in training and the end product of unity and economy of operations in battle has never been better than imperfectly expressed even by such masters as de Saxe and von Steuben, who felt it by profound instinct. The time-honored explanation is that when men accustom themselves to obeying orders, the time ultimately arrives when they will obey by habit, and that the habit will carry over into any set of circumstances requiring response to orders. This has the quality of relative truth; it is true so far as it goes, but it undersells the major values.

The heterogeneous crowd is swayed by the voices of instinct. Properly trained, any military unit, being a homogeneous body, should be swayed by the voice of training. Out of uniformity of environment comes uniformity of character and spirit. From moving and acting together men grow to depend upon, and to support, each other, and to subordinate their individual wills to the will of the leader. And if that were all that training profited them, they would rarely win a battle or a skirmish under modern conditions!

Today the supreme value of any training at arms which fixes habit is that, under conditions of absolute pressure, it enables men to take the primary steps essential to basic security without too great taxing of their mental faculties and moral powers; this leaves their senses relatively free to cope with the unexpected. The unforeseen contingency invariably happens in battle, and its incidence supplies the supreme test of the efficacy of any training method. Surprise has no regard for the importance of rank; in combat any unit's fortune may pivot on the judgment and initiative of the file who has last joined it. Therefore the moral object in training is stated without any qualification in words once used by a wise Frenchman, Dr. Maurice Campeaux: "It should be the subordination of the individual's will to the leader's, and not its surrender or destruction." All training at all levels has a dual object—to develop us all as leaders of men and followers of leaders. Its technics are most perfect when they serve evenly these parallel purposes. In consequence, when any officer thinks only on: "What is policy?" rather than: "What should policy be for the good of the service?" he has trained his sights too low.

Even in modern warfare, however, there are exceptional circumstances in which success is altogether dependent upon the will and judgment of the leader, and undeviating response to his orders. The commander of a buttoned-up tank is the master of its fortunes, and what happens for better or worse is according to the strength of his personal control. Within a submerged submarine during action, the situation is still more remarkable. Only one man, the commander of the ship, can see what is occurring, and he only with one eye; the resolving of every situation depends on his judgment as to what should be done. Yet those who have the surest knowledge of this service have said that the main problem in submarine warfare is to find a sufficient body of officers who will rise superior to the intricacies of their complicated machines, and will make their own opportunities and take advantage of them. That is hardly unique. The same quality is the hallmark of greatness in any individual serving with a combat arm. The military crowd will double its effort for a leader when success rides on his coattails; but he needs first to capture their loyalty by keeping his contracts with them, sweetening the ties of organization, and convincing them that he is a man to be followed. His luck (which despite all platitudes to the contrary is an element in success) begins when his men start to believe that he was born under a lucky star. But they are not apt to be so persuaded unless he can make his outfit shine in comparison with all others. The best argument for establishing a low VD score and a high disciplinary and deportment record within any unit is that it convinces higher authority that the unit is well run and is trying, and is therefore entitled to any extra consideration that may be requested. All who have been closely identified with the inner working of any higher headquarters in the American establishment know that it works this way. On the other hand, the fundamental idea is almost as old as the hills. Turning back to Cicero, we will find these words: "Neither the physician nor the general can ever, however praiseworthy he may be in the theory of his art, perform anything highly worthwhile without experience in the rules laid down for the observation of all small duties." The Old Roman added that between men nothing is so binding as a similarity of good dispositions.

Within the military crowd, and granting to each the same quality of human material, the problem of achieving organic unity in the face of the enemy is one thing on a ship, and quite another among land-fighting forces. Loyalty to the ship itself provides an extra and incisive bond among naval forces. Given steadiness in the command, men will fight the ship to the limit, if only for the reason that if they fail to do so, there is no place to go but down. The physical setting of duty is defined by material objects close at hand. The individual has only to fit himself into an already predetermined frame. He knows when he is derelict, and he knows further that his dereliction can hardly escape the eye of his comrades. The words: "Now Hear This!" have the particular significance that they bespeak the collected nature of naval forces, and the essential unifying force of complete communications.

If the situation were as concrete, and the integrating influences as pervading among field forces as in the Navy, land warfare would be relieved of a great part of its frictions. Except among troops defending a major fortress with all-around protection, there is no such possibility. Field movement is always diffusing. As fire builds up against the line, its members have less and less a sense of each other, and a feeling that as individuals they are getting support. Each man is at the mercy of the contact with some other file, and when the contact breaks, he sees only blackness in the enveloping situation. Men then have to turn physically back toward each other to regain the feeling of strength which comes of organization. That, in brief, is the mathematical and psychological reason why salients into an enemy line invariably take the form of a wedge; it comes of the movements of unnerved and aimless men huddling toward each other like sheep awaiting the voice of the shepherd. The natural instincts intervene ever in the absence of strong leadership. Said the French General de Maud'huy: "However perfectly trained a company may be it always tends to become once again the crowd when suddenly shocked."

But the priceless advantage which may be instilled in the military crowd by a proper training is that it also possesses the means of recovery. That possibility—the resolution of order out of chaos—reposes within every file who has gained within the service a confidence that he has some measure of influence among his fellows. The welfare of the unit machinery depends upon having the greatest possible number of human shock absorbers—men who in the worst hour are capable of stepping forward and saying: "This calls for something extra and that means me." The restoration of control upon the battlefield, and the process of checking fright and paralysis and turning men back to essential tactical duties, does not come simply of constituted authority again finding its voice and articulating its strength to the extremities of the unit boundary. Control is a man-to-man force under fire. No matter how lowly his rank, any man who controls himself contributes to the control of others. A private can steady a general as surely as a cat can look at a king. There is no better ramrod for the back of a senior, who is beginning to buckle, than the sight of a junior who has kept his nerve. Land battles, as to the fighting part, are won by the intrepidity of men in grade from private to captains mainly. Fear is contagious but courage is not less so. The courage of any one man reflects in some degree the courage of all those who are within his vision. To the man who is in terror and bordering on panic, no influence can be more steadying than that of seeing some other man near him who is retaining self-control and doing his duty.

The paralysis which comes of fear can be lifted only through the resumption of action which will again give individuals the feeling of organization. This does not mean ordering a bayonet charge, or the firing of a volley at such-and-such o'clock. It may mean only patting one man on the back, "talking it up" to a couple of others, sending someone out to find a flank, or turning one's self to dig-in, while passing the word to others to do likewise. This is action in the realest sense of the term. Out of reinvigorating men toward the taking of many small actions develops the possibility of large and decisive action. The unit must first find itself before doing an effective job of finding the enemy. Out of those acts which are incidental to the establishing of order, a leader reaffirms his own power of decision.

Such things are elementary, and of the very nature of the fire fight. While there is much more to be said about the play of moral forces in the trial and success of the group under combat conditions, most of it is to be learned from other sources, and it is the duty of every officer to study all that he can of this subject, and apply it to what he does in his daily rounds.

There is no rule pertaining to the moral unifying of military forces under the pressures of the battlefield which is not equally good in the training which conditions troops for this eventuality. For the group to feel a great spiritual solidarity, and for its members to be bound together by mutual confidence and the satisfactions of a rewarding comradeship, is the foundation of great enterprise. But it is not more than that. Unaccompanied by a strengthening of the military virtues and a rise in the martial spirit, a friendly unity will not of itself point men directly toward the main object in training, nor enable them to dispose themselves efficiently toward each other on entering battle.

It does not make the military man less an agent of peace and more a militarist that he relishes his membership within a fighting establishment and thinks those thoughts which would best put his arms to efficient use. The military establishment neither declares nor makes war; these are acts by the nation. But it is the duty of the military establishment primarily to succor the nation from any great jeopardy.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ENVIRONMENT

The saying of the Old Sergeant that, "It takes a war to knock the hell out of the Regular Army," applies as broadly to war's effects upon the general peacetime establishment.

In the rapid expansion of the armed service which comes of a national emergency, nothing seems to remain the same. Old units fill up, and change their character. By the time they have sent out three or four cadres of commissioned and enlisted leaders to form the base for entirely new organizations, little remains of the moral foundation of the parent unit except an honored name.

Promotion is rapid and moves are frequent among the higher commanders. No sooner does a man feel fairly settled under a new commander, and confident that he will get along, than he looks up to see someone else filling the space.

Installations grow like mushrooms. Schools multiply at a phenomenal rate. The best qualified men are taken away so that they will become better qualified, either by taking an officers' course or through specialist training. Their places are taken by men who may have an equal native ability, but haven't yet mastered the tricks of the trade. This piles high the load of work on those who command.

The intake and the pipelines in all services fill with men of a quite different fiber and outlook than those which commonly pass through the peacetime training establishment.

Particularly in the drafts which flow to the army there is a curious mixture of the good with the bad. The illiterates, the low IQs and the men who are physically a few notches below par are passed for service, though under normal conditions the recruiting standards shut them out. At the other end of the scale are the highly educated men from the colleges, and the robust individuals from the factory and farm. In natural quality they are as well suited to the service as any who seek it out in peacetime, but in disposition they are likely to be a little less tractable. On the whole, however, there is no radical difference between them, if we look at both groups simply as training problems for the study of the officer.

In the midst of war, when all else is in flux, at least one thing stands fast. The methods, the self-discipline, and the personality which will best enable the officer to command efficiently during peace are identical with the requirements which fit him to shape new material most perfectly under the conditions of war.

This is only another way of saying that for his own success, in addition to the solid qualities which win him the respect of other men, when war comes, he needs a vast adaptability and a confidence which will carry over from one situation to another, or he will have no peace of mind.

It is only to the man who is burdened with unnecessary and exaggerated fears, and who mistakes for a fancied security the privilege of sitting quietly in one place, that the uprooting which comes with war is demoralizing. The natural officer sees it as an hour of opportunity, and though he may not like anything else about war, he at least relishes the strong feeling of personal contention which always develops when there are many openings inviting many men. As one World War II commander expressed it: "During war the ball is always kicking around loose in the middle of the field and any man who has the will may pick it up and run with it."

Promotion, however, and the invitation to try one's hand at some greater venture, do not come automatically to an officer because of the onset of war. The man who had marked time on his job becomes relatively worse off, not only because the competition is keener, but because in lieu of anything which marks him for preferment, there is no good reason why he should get it. Years of service are not to a man's credit short of some positive proof that the years have been well used. The following are among the reasons why certain officers are marked for high places and find the door wide open, come an emergency:

A consistently superior showing in the efficiency reports.

A record showing that they have done well in service schools.

The ability to attract the eye of some high-placed superior by exceptional performance on maneuvers, in committee work or any other testing problem.

In addition to general dutifulness, the development to a conspicuous degree of the special talents such as writing, instructing, lecturing and staff administration.

Fluency in other languages.

Wide and resourceful study in the fields of military history, military geography, national military policy and logistics.

The advancement of an original idea which has led to a general improvement in any one service.

Any and all of these are extra strings to one's bow. They are the means to greater satisfaction during peacetime employment and the source of great personal advantage during the shooting season. But they should not be mistaken for the main thing. To excell in command, and to be recognized as deserving of it, is the rightful ambition of every service officer and his main hold on the probabilities of getting wider recognition.

This holds true of the man who is so patently a specialist that it would be wrong to waste him in a command responsibility. If he understands the art of command, and his personality and moral fortitude fit him for the leading of men, he will be in better adjustment with his circumstances anywhere in the services, and will be given greater respect by his superiors. This rule is so absolute in its workings as to warrant saying that every man who wears the insignia of an officer in the armed forces of the United States should aspire to the same bearing and the same inner confidence as to his power to meet other men and move them in the direction he desires that is to be marked in a superior company commander.

The natural leader is the real specialist of the armed services. He is as prodigious, and as much a man apart, as the wizard who has mastered supersonic speeds. Here we speak not alone of the ability of an officer fully to control and develop his element under training conditions, but to take the same element into battle and conserve the total of its powers with complete efficiency. The man who resolves to develop within himself the prerequisite qualities which serve such an object is moved by the worthiest of all ambitions, for he has submitted himself to the most complex task within human reach.

The self-assurance that one has promise in the field of command is in part a derivative of growth and in part a matter of instinct. But to the normal young officer, it comes as something of a delightful surprise to learn that when he speaks other men will listen, when he reasons they will become convinced, and when he gives an order his authority is accepted. Far from being a bad quality, this ingenuousness is wholesome because it reflects warm appreciation of what has been given him. It does not lessen confidence if a commander feels this way about those who are within his charge throughout his service. The best results flow when the working loyalty of other men is accepted like manna from heaven, with gratitude rather than with gratification. Simply to feel that it is one's rightful portion is the best proof that it is not, and leads to cockiness, windiness, and self-adulation, with attendant loss of the sympathy of other men. The consequence to the individual whose dream of success is only that he will take on more and more authority is that he will suffer from a more and more one-sided development. The great philosopher, Albert Schweitzer, holds up to other self-reliant men the example of Defoe's hero, Robinson Crusoe, because he is continually reflecting on the subject of human conduct and he feels himself so responsible for this duty that when he gets in a fight he thinks about how he can win it with the smallest loss of human life. The conservation of men's powers, not the spending thereof, is the object of main concern to the truly qualified military commander.

At the same time, there should be no mistake about the manner in which command is exercised. To command is not simply to compel or to convince but a subtle mixture of both. Moral suasion and material compulsion are linked in its every act. It involves not only saying that this is the best thing to do but inferring that the thing had best be done. Force and reason are inseparably linked in its nature, and the force of reason is not more important than the reason of force, if the matter is to be brought to a successful issue. The very touchstone of loyalty is that just demands will be put upon it. It cannot endure and strengthen except through finding material means of expression. When men are given absolute freedom, with no compulsion upon them but to eat and sleep, as with a group of South Sea savages, there can be no strong, uniting bond between them. As for absolute security, outside of the walls of a penitentiary it is virtually nonexistent, though one would scarcely look inside the walls expecting to find loyalty. In brief, being an active force in the lives of humankind, loyalty is developed through the unifying of action. The more decisive the action becomes, the greater becomes the vitality of the bond. Service men look back with an esteem, amounting almost to the love that a son feels for his father, toward the captains who led them well on the battlefield. But the best skipper they ever had on a training detail gets hardly more than a kind word.

It has already been said that the man with a preeminent ability to organize and direct the action of the military group has an outstanding and greatly prized talent. The assumption that the holder of a commission in an armed service of the United States is possessed of this quality to a degree goes with the commission; lacking it, the warrant would have been withheld. But all men vary in their capacities to respond confidently to any particular situation. Some, no matter how hard they try, lack the keen edge.

To the officer who discovers that he is especially suited, by temperament and liking, to the leading of combat forces, it comes, therefore, almost as a personal charge that he will let nothing dissuade him from the conviction that his post of duty is with the line. Though he may seek other temporary duty to advance his own knowledge and interests, he should remain mentally wedded to that which he does best, and which most other men find difficult.

If it is a good rule for him, it applies just as well to all others within his charge. This means close attention to the careers of all junior leaders from the enlisted ranks, toward the end that the fighting strength of the establishment will be conserved. The personnel people will sometimes scuttle a fine natural leader of a tactical platoon, simply because they have discovered that in civilian life he ran a garage and there is a vacancy for a motor pool operator, or switch a gunner who is zealous for his new work back to a place in the rear, because the record book says that he is an erstwhile, though reluctant, keeper of books. From their point of view, this makes sense. But they are not always aware of how difficult and essential it is to find men who can lead at fighting. It is a point which all officers need ponder, for in our modern enthusiasm over the marvels that can be worked by a classification system, we tend to overlook that fighting power is the main thing, and that the best hands are not to be found behind every bush.

When war comes, there are vast changes in the tempo and pressure of life within the armed establishment. Faced with new and unmeasured responsibility, almost every man would be depressed by the feeling that he is out far beyond his depth, if he were not buoyed by the knowledge that every other man is in like case, and that all things are relative. Once these points are recognized, the experience becomes exalting. A relatively junior officer finds himself able confidently to administer a policy applying to an entire service; a bureau, which might have been laboring to save money in the purchase of carpet tacks and pins, becomes suddenly confronted with the task of spending billions, and of getting action whatever the cost.

But despite the radical change in the scale of operations, the lines laid down for the conduct of business remain the same. The regulations under which the armed services proceed are written for peace and war, and cover all contingencies in either situation. The course of conduct which is set forth for an officer under training conditions is the standard he is expected to follow when war comes. Administration is carried out according to the same rules, though it is probably true that there is less "paper doll cutting"—meaning that the tide of paper work, though larger in volume, is more to the point. To the young officer, it must oftentime seem that, under peacetime training conditions, he is being called on constantly to read reports which should never have been written in the first place and is required to write memoranda which no one should be forced to read in the second place. For that matter, the same thought occurs not infrequently to many of his seniors. But there is this main point in rebuttal—it is all a part of the practice and conditioning for a game which is in deadly earnest when war comes. If the armed services in peace were to limit correspondence up and down the line to those things which were either routine or altogether vital, few men would develop a facility at staff procedures.

In one sense, the same generalization applies to the workings of the security system. There is the common criticism that the services always tend to over-classify papers, and make work for themselves by their careful safeguarding of "secrets" in which no one is interested. The idea is not without warrant; part of the trouble stems from the fact that the line between what can safely be made of public knowledge and what can not is impossible of clear definition. Hence the only safe rule-of-thumb is, "When in doubt, classify." There is, however, the other point that it is only through officers learning how to safeguard security, handle papers according to the regulations, and keep a tightly buttoned lip on all things which are essentially the business of the service during peacetime that they acquire the disciplined habit of which matures not only their personal success but the national safety when war comes.

Oftentimes the rules seem superfluous. A man scans a paper and sees that the contents are innocuous, and ignoring the stamp, he leaves the document on his desk, because he is too lazy to unlock the file. But the rules mean exactly what they say, and because their purpose is of final importance to the nation, they will be enforced. There is no surer way for an officer to blight an otherwise promising career than to become careless about security matters. The superior who looks lightly on such an offense is but seeking trouble for himself.

Even so, it is to be observed that regulations are a general guide to conduct, and though they mean what they say they are not utterly inflexible. One must not be like the half-wit described by Col. George F. Baltzell to his trainees during World War I. Joe had attached himself to the Confederate command of the Colonel's father, whose last chore before turning in was to post the boy. One night in a Virginia Tidewater operation, Joe was told to stay by a stump until morning. At dawn the unit was moving out in a fog when the elder Baltzell bethought himself of Joe. Down by the riverside his cries finally brought a faint answer through the mist, "Here I is." "What are you doing there, boy?" barked the officer, "I told you not to move." "I hain't moved, sir," replied the invisible Joe, up to his neck in water, "the river done riz." An occasional unforeseen circumstance arises in which it is nonsensical, or even impossible, to adhere to the letter of regulations, as of orders. It is then essential that an officer use plain common sense, acting according to the spirit of the regulation, so that it is clearly manifest he did the best possible thing within the determining set of conditions. For example, in the European Theater, the Historian had charge of 32 tons of documents, all classified "Confidential," "Secret" or "Top Secret." There were not enough safes or secured files in the whole of France to hold this material, which meant that established procedures could not be followed. A permanent guard and watch was put on the archive. Wooden cases were made from scrap lumber. Ample fire-fighting equipment was brought in. Personnel was drilled in evacuating the material in its order of importance, should fire occur. The setup was inspected twice daily by the commander or his executive. Though these arrangements still fell short of the letter of regulations, they perforce had to satisfy any inspector because there was no sounder alternative.

When circumstances require any officer to take a course which, while appearing in his view to be in the best interests of the service, runs counter to the lines of action laid down by constituted authority, he has the protection that he may always ask for a court to pass judgment on what he had done. We are all prone to associate the court martial process only with the fact of punishment, but it is also a shield covering official integrity. The privilege of appealing to the judgment and sense of fair play in a group of one's fellow officers is a very comforting thing in any emergency situation, requiring a desperate decision, and engaging conflicting interests. It gives one a feeling of backing even when circumstances are such that one is making a lonely decision. Almost needless to say, cases of this sort are far more likely to occur in war than during peace.

Inspection takes on a somewhat different hue during war. It becomes more frequent but, on the whole, less zealous with respect to spit-and-polish and less captious about the many little things which promote good order and appearance throughout the general establishment. This condition is accentuated as organizations move closer to the zone of fire. Higher authority becomes more engrossed in the larger affairs of operation. At all levels more and more time is taken in dealing with the next level above, which means that less and less can be given to looking at the structure down below.

What then is the key to over-all soundness in the services in any hour of great national peril? This, that in all services, at all times and at all levels, each officer is vigilant to see that his own unit, section or office is inspection-proof by every test which higher authority might apply.

It should not require the visit of an inspector to any installation to apprise those who are in charge as to what is being badly done.

The standards are neither complex nor arbitrary. They can be easily learned. Thereafter, all that is needed are the eyes to see and the will to insist firmly that correction be made.

In officership, there is simply no substitute for personal reconnaissance, nor any other technique that in the long run will have half its value. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, the first leader of our independent Air Force, was so renowned for this disciplined habit of getting everywhere and seeing everything that, even when he was a relatively young major, a story about his ubiquitousness gained service-wide fame. An ailing recruit was being examined by a doctor at March Field. "Do you see spots before your eyes?" the doctor asked. "Heavens," groaned the recruit. "Do I have to see him in here, too?"

Once formed, the habit of getting down to the roots of organization, of seeing with one's own eyes what is taking place, of measuring it against one's own scale of values, of ordering such changes as are needed, and of following-through to make certain that the changes are made, becomes the mainspring of all efficient command action.

In battle, there is no other way to be sure. In training, there is no better way to move toward self-assurance.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE MISSION

There is a main reason why the word "mission" has an especial appropriateness to the military services and implies something beyond the call of duty. The arms of the United States do not advance simply through the process of correct orders being given and then executed with promptness, vigor, and intelligence.

That is the greater part of the task, but it is by no means all. Military systems reflect the limitations and imperfections of their human material. Whatever his station, and experience, no man is wise enough and all-seeing enough that he can encompass every factor in a given problem, take correct judgment on every area of weakness, foresee all of that which has not yet happened, and then write the perfect analysis and solution for the guidance of his subordinates.

The perfecting of operations, and the elimination of grit from the machinery, therefore become the concern of all, directing their thought and purpose to the doing of whatever needs to be done to further the harmony and efficiency of the establishment, taking personal action where it is within their province, or calling the matter to the attention of higher authority when it is not. In this direct sense, every ensign and second lieutenant has a personal responsibility for the general well-being of the security structure of the United States. This is fact, and not theory. In World War II, many of the practical ideas which were made of universal application in the services were initiated by men of very junior rank. But the extent to which any man's influence may be felt beyond his immediate circle depends first of all upon the thoroughness with which he executes his assigned duties, since nothing else will give his superiors confidence in his judgments. It is only when he is exacting in small things, and is careful to "close the circuit" on every minor assignment, that he qualifies himself to think and act constructively in larger matters, through book study and imaginative observation of the situation which surrounds him. At this stage, an officer is well on the road to the accomplishment of his general mission.

When an order is given, what are the responsibilities of the man who receives it? In sequence, these:

To be certain that he understands what is required.

To examine and organize his resources as promptly as possible.

Fully to inform his subordinates on these points.

To execute the order without waste of time or means.

To call for support if events prove that his means are inadequate.

To fill up the spaces in the orders if there are developments which had not been anticipated.

When the detail is complete, to prepare to go on to something else.

Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan, who planned the invasion of Normandy, put the matter this way: "When setting out on any enterprise, it is as well to ask oneself three questions. To whom is one responsible? For precisely what is one responsible? What are the means at one's disposal for discharging this responsibility?"

Nothing so warms the heart of a superior as that, on giving an order, he sees his subordinate salute, say "Yes sir," then about face and proceed to carry it out to the hilt, without faltering or looking back. This is the kind of man that a commander will choose to have with him every time, and that he will recommend first for advancement.

On the other hand, clarification of the object is not only a right but a duty, and it cuts both ways. Orders are not always clear, and no superior is on firm ground when he is impatient of questions which are to the point, or resentful of the man who asks them. But it is natural that he will be doubtful of the man whose words show either that he hasn't heard or is concerned mainly with irrelevencies. The cultivation of the habit of careful, concentrated listening, and of collected thought in reading into any problem, is a principal portal to successful officership.

To say that promptness and positiveness in the execution of a mission are at all times major virtues does not imply that the good man, like an old fire horse, moves out instantly at the clang of a bell. Soundness of action involves a sense of timing. Thoroughness is the way of duty, rather than a speed which goes off half-cocked. There is frequently a time for waiting; there is always time for acute reflection. The brain which works "like a steel trap" exists only in fiction. Even such men as General Eisenhower, or Admiral Nimitz, or for that matter, Gen. U. S. Grant, have at times deferred decision temporarily while waiting for a change in tide or circumstance to help them make up their minds. This is normal in the rational individual; it is not a sign of weakness. Rather than to cultivate a belief in one's own infallibility, the mature outlook for the military man is best expressed in the injunction of the Apostle Paul: "Let all things be done decently and in order." Grant, wrote of the early stage of his advance on Richmond: "At this time I was not entirely decided as to how I should move my Army." From the pen of General Eisenhower come these words: "The commander's success will be measured more by his ability to lead than by his adherence to fixed notions." Thus, in the conduct of operations not less than in the execution of orders, it is necessary that the mind remain plastic and impressionable.

Within military organization, to refuse an order is unthinkable, though to muster a case showing why some other order would serve in its place is not undutiful in an individual subordinate, any more than in a staff. By the same rule, insistence that an order be carried out undeviatingly, simply because it has been given, does not of itself win respect for the authority uttering it. Its modification, however, should never be in consequence of untempered pressure from below. To change or rescind is justified only when reestimate of all of the available facts indicates that some other order will serve the general purpose more efficiently.

Taking counsel of subordinates in any enterprise or situation is therefore a matter of giving them full advantage of one's own information and reasoning, weighing with the intellect whatever thought or argument they may contribute to the sum of considerations, and then making, without compromise, a clean decision as to the line of greatest advantage. To know how to command obedience is a very different thing from making men obey. Obedience is not the product of fear, but of understanding, and understanding is based on knowledge.

On D-day in Normandy, Lt. Turner B. Turnbull undertook to do with his platoon of 42 men a task which had been intended for a battalion; he was to block the main road to enemy forces pressing south from the Cherbourg area against the American right flank. In early morning he engaged a counterattacking enemy battalion, supported by mortars and a self-propelled gun at the village of Neuville au Plain. The platoon held its ground throughout the day. By dusk the enemy had closed wide around both its flanks and was about to cut the escape route. Turnbull had 23 men left. He said to the others, "There's one thing left to do; we can charge them." Pfc. Joseph Sebastian, who had just returned from reconnoitering to the rear, said, "I think there's a chance we can still get out; that's what we ought to do." Turnbull asked of his men, "What's your judgment?" They supported Sebastian as having the sounder idea. In a twinkling Turnbull made his decision. He told the others to get set for the run; he was losing men even while he talked; he ordered that the 12 wounded were to be left behind. Corp. James Kelly, first aid man, said he would stay with the wounded. Pfc Sebastian, who had argued Turnbull into a withdrawal, volunteered to stand his ground and cover the others with a BAR. Corp. Raymond Smitson said he would stay by Sebastian and support him with hand grenades. Sgt. Robert Niland started for one of the machine guns, to help Smitson and Sebastian in covering the withdrawal, but was shot dead by a German closing in with a machine pistol before he could reach it. The 16 remaining survivors took off like so many shots fired from a pistol, at full speed but at intervals, to minimize the target. All got back to their Battalion, though Turnbull was killed in action a few days later. Their 1-day fight had preserved the flank of an Army. For economy of effort, and power of decision, there is not a brighter example in the whole book of war.

To encourage subordinates to present their views, and to weigh them in the light of reason, is at the same time the surest way to win their confidence and to refine one's own information and judgments. However, to leave final decision to them in matters which are clearly in the area of one's own responsibility, is fatal to the character of self and to the integrity of the force.

Any officer is one among many. Behind the smallest unit is the total power of the combined services. In the main, effectiveness develops out of unity of effort. To commit one's force to desperate, unhelped enterprises, when there is support at hand which may be had for the asking, may be one road to glory, but it is certainly not the path to success in War. The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava was made immortal by Tennyson's poem, but it was as foolhardy as asking a troop of Boy Scouts to capture Gibraltar. In battle, a main obligation of those who lead is to make constant resurvey of the full horizon of their resources and means of possible support. This entails in time of peace the acquisition of a great body of knowledge seemingly unrelated to the administration of one's immediate affairs. It entails, also, facing forthrightly toward every task, or assignment, giving it a full try, sweating out every obstacle, but not being ashamed to ask for help or counsel if it proves to be beyond one's powers. To give it everything, though not quite making the grade personally, is merely an exercise in character building. But to have the mission fail because of false pride is inexcusable.

The prayer that Sir Francis Drake wrote down for his men as he led them forth to a great adventure might well be repeated by any leader in the hour when he begins to despair because in spite of his striving he has not gained all he sought: "O Lord God, when Thou givest to thy servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same until it is thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory."

The courage to start will carry a man far. Under the conditions of either war or peace, it is astonishing how many times all things come in balance for the man who is less fearful of rebuff than of being counted a cypher. One of Britain's great armored leaders, Lt. Gen. Sir Giffard Martel, digested the lesson of his whole life experience into this sentence: "If you take a chance, it usually succeeds, presupposing good judgment." Finally, it comes to that, for the willingness to accept calculated risks is of the essence of effective personal performance within the military profession. There must be careful collection of data. There must be weighty consideration of all known and knowable factors in the given situation. But beyond these things, what?