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?
To convey the idea that an officer must by ingrained habit dispose
himself to take action only after he has arrived at an exact formula,
pointing exclusively in one direction, would mean only that under the
conditions of war he could never get off his trousers-seat. For such
fullness of information and confidence of situation are not given to
combat commanders once in a lifetime.
It is customary to treat "estimate of situation" as if it were pure
mathematical process, pointing almost infallibly to a definite result.
But this is contrary to nature. The mind of man does not work that
way, nor is it consistent with operational realities. Senior
commanders are as prone as even the newest junior lieutenant to labor
in perplexity between two opposing courses of action during times of
crisis, and then make their decisions almost with the abruptness of an
explosion. _It is post-decision steadiness more than pre-decision
certitude which carries the day._ A large part of decision is
intuitive; it is the byproduct of the subconscious. In war, much of
what is most pertinent lies behind a drawn curtain. The officer is
therefore badly advised who would believe that a hunch is without
value, or that there is something unmilitary about the simple decision
to take some positive action, even though he is working in the dark.
The youthful Col. Julian Ewell of the 501st Parachute Infantry
Regiment, reaching Bastogne, Belgium, on the night of December 18,
1944, with only his lead battalion at hand, insisted that he be given
orders, even though higher headquarters could tell him almost nothing
about the friendly or enemy situations. He got his orders, and with
the one battalion moved out through the dark to counter-attack. So
doing, he stopped cold the German XXXXVII Panzer Corps, and compelled
Hitler to alter his Ardennes plan.
To grasp the spirit of orders is not less important than to accept
them cheerfully and keep faith with the contract. But the letter of an
instruction does not relieve him who receives it from the obligation
to exercise common sense. In the Carolina maneuvers of 1941, a soldier
stood at a road intersection for 3 days and nights directing civilian
traffic, simply because the man who put him there had forgotten all
about it. Though he was praised at the time, he was hardly a shining
example to hold up to troops. Diligence and dullness are mutually
exclusive traits. The model who is well worth pondering by all
services is Chief Boatswain L. M. Jahnsen who on the morning of Pearl
Harbor was in command of the yard garbage scow YG-17. She was
collecting refuse from the fleet when the first Japanese planes came
over. As the West Virginia began to burn, Jahnsen headed his scow into
the heat and smoke and ordered his men to man their single fire hose.
The old assignment forgotten, with overheated ammunition exploding all
around him, he stood there directing his men in all that could be done
to lessen the ruin of the fleet.
Within the services, a special glory attends those whose heroism or
service is "above and beyond the call of duty." But they owe their
fundamental character to the millions of men who have followed the
path of duty above and beyond the call of orders.
Whatever the nature of an officer's assignment, there are
compensations. The conventional attitude is to speak disparagingly of
staff duty, sniff at service with a higher administrative headquarters
as if it were somehow lacking in true masculine appeal, and express a
preference for duty "at sea," "with troops" or "in the field."
Although most of this is flapdoodle, it probably does no more harm
than Admiral William F. Halsey's grimace over the fact that he once
"commanded an LSD--Large Steel Desk." He is a poor stick of a military
man who has no natural desire to try his hand at the direct management
of men, if for no better reason than to test his own mettle. Even the
avowed specialist is better equipped for his own groove if he has
proved himself at the other game.
Staff work, however, has its own peculiar rewards. Chief among them
are the broadening of perspective, a more intimate contact with the
views, working methods and personality characteristics of higher
commanders and the chance to become acquainted with administrative
responsibility from the viewpoint of policy. Although it sounds
mysterious and even forbidding, until one has done it, the procedures
are not more complex nor less instructive than in any other type of
assignment.
There are no inside secrets about what goes here that is different, or
will not work equally well elsewhere. The staff is simply the servant
of the general force; it exists but to further the welfare of the
fighting establishment. Those within it are remiss if they fail to
keep this rule uppermost. Consequently, no special attitude is called
for, other than an acute receptiveness. The same military bearing, the
same naturalness of manner which enable an officer to win the
confidence and working loyalty of his men will serve just as well when
he is dealing with higher authority.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DISCIPLINE
Though many of the aspects of discipline can be discussed more
appropriately in other sections of this book, an officer must
understand its particular nature within American military forces if he
is to win from his men obedience coupled with activity at will.
It frequently happens that the root meaning of a word more nearly
explains the whole context of ideas with which it is legitimately
associated than the public's mistaken use of the same word. Coming
from the Latin, "to discipline" means "to teach." Insofar as the
military establishment of the United States is concerned, nothing need
be added to that definition. Its discipline is that standard of
personal deportment, work requirement, courtesy, appearance and
ethical conduct which, inculcated in men, will enable them singly or
collectively to perform their mission with an optimum efficiency.
Military discipline, in this respect, is no different than the
discipline of the university, a baseball league or a labor union. It
makes specific requirements of the individual; so do they. It has a
system of punishments; so do they. These things are but incidental to
the end result. Their main object is to preserve the interests and
further the opportunity of the cooperative majority. But the essential
difference between discipline in the military establishment and in any
other free institution is this, that if the man objects, he still does
not have the privilege of quitting tomorrow, and if he resists or
becomes indifferent and is not corrected, his bad example will be felt
to the far end of the line.
Though the failure to stop looting by our forces during World War II,
and the redeployment riots which followed it, are both unpleasant
memories, they underscored a lesson already affirmed by every American
experience at arms. The most contagious of all moral diseases is
insubordination, and it has no more respect for rank than the plague.
When higher authority winks at its existence among the rank and file,
it will contaminate upward as well as down. Once a man condones
remissness, his own belief in discipline begins to wither. The officer
who tolerates slackness in the dress of his men soon ceases to tend
his own appearance, and if he is not called to account, his sloppy
habits will shortly begin to infect his superior. There is only one
correct way to wear the uniform. When any deviations in dress are
condoned within the services, the way is open to the destruction of
all uniformity and unity. This continuing problem of stimulating all
ranks to toe-up to that straight line of bearing and deportment which
will build inner confidence and win public respect is the main reason
why, as George Washington put it: "To bring men to a proper degree of
subordination is not the work of a day, a month, or a year." It calls
not simply for a high-minded attitude toward the profession of arms
but for infinitely patient attention to a great variety of detail. An
officer has a disciplined hold upon his own job only when, like the
air pilot preparing to take off, he makes personal check of every
point where the machinery might fail. The stronger his example of
diligence, the more earnestly will it be followed by the ablest of his
subordinates, and they in turn will carry other men along. No leader
ever fails his men--nor will they fail him--who leads them in respect
for the disciplined life. Between these two things--discipline in
itself and a personal faith in the military value of discipline--lies
all the difference between military maturity and mediocrity. A salute
from an unwilling man is as meaningless as the moving of a leaf on a
tree; it is a sign only that the subject has been caught by a gust of
wind. But a salute from the man who takes pride in the gesture because
he feels privileged to wear the uniform of the United States, having
found the service good, is the epitome of military virtue. Of those
units which were most effective, and were capable of the greatest
measure of self-help during World War II combat, it was invariably
remarked that they observed the salute and the other rules of courtesy
better than the others, even when engaged.
The level of discipline is in large part what the officers in any unit
choose to make it. The general aim of regulations is to set an
over-all standard of conduct and work requirement for all concerned.
Training schedules, operational directives and other work programs
serve the same end. _But there is still a broad area in which the
influence of every officer is brought to bear. To state what is
required is only the beginning; to require what has been stated is the
positive end._ The rule of courtesy may be laid down by the book; it
remains for the officer to rule by work rather than working by rules,
and by setting the good example for his men, stimulate their
acceptance of orderly military habits. A training schedule may
stipulate that certain tasks be carried out but only the officer in
charge can assure that the work will be accomplished with fidelity.
The level of discipline should at all times be according to what is
needed to get the best results from the majority of dutiful
individuals. There is no practical reason for any sterner requirement
than that. There is no moral justification for countenancing anything
less. _Discipline destroys the spirit and working loyalty of the
general force when it is pitched to the minority of malcontented,
undutiful men within the organization, whether to punish or to appease
them._ When this common sense precept is ignored, the results
invariably are unhappy.
However, it is not here inferred that what has to be done to build
strong discipline in forces will at all times be welcomed by the
first-class men within a unit, or that their reaction will always be
approval. Rather, it is to say that they will accept what is ordered,
even though they may gripe about it, and that ultimately their own
reason will convince them of the value of what is being done.