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.