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.