shared with all who are capable of filling up the spaces in orders and
of carrying out that which is not openly expressed though it may be
understood._ Admittedly, it is not easy for a young officer, who by
reason of his youth is not infrequently lacking in self-assurance and
in the confidence that he can command respect, to understand that as a
commander he can grow in strength in the measure that he succeeds in
developing the latent strength of his subordinates. But if he
stubbornly resists this premise as he goes along in the service, his
personal resources will never become equal to the strain which will be
imposed upon him, come a war emergency. The power to command resides
largely in the ability to see when a proper initiative is being
exercised and in giving it moral encouragement. When an officer feels
that way about his job and his men, he will not be ready to question
any action by a junior which might be narrowly construed as an
encroachment upon his own authority. Of this last evil come the
restraints which reduce men to automatons, giving only that which is
asked, or less, according to the pressing of a button.
There are other men who have as sound a potential as these
already-made leaders, but lack the initial confidence because they
were not constructively handled in earlier years. They require
somewhat more personal attention, for the simple reason that more
frequent contact with their superiors, words of approval and advice as
needed, will do more than all else to put bottom under them. They must
be encouraged to think for themselves as well as to obey orders, to
organize as well as to respond, if they are to become part of the
solution, rather than remaining part of the problem, of command. If
left wholly to their own devices, or to the ministrations of less
thoughtful subordinates, they will remain in that majority which moves
only when told. It takes no more work, though it does require
imagination, to awaken the energies of such men by appealing to their
intelligence and their self-interest, than to nauseate them with dull
theory, and to cramp them by depriving them of responsibility.
Careful missionary work among these "sleepers" is as productive as
spading the ground, and sprinkling a garden patch. When an officer
takes hold in a new unit, his main chance of making it better than it
was comes of looking for the overlooked men. He uses his hand to give
them a firm lift upward, but it will not be available for that purpose
if he spends any of his time tugging at men who are already on their
feet and moving in the right general direction.
In the words of a distinguished armored commander in our forces: "To
the military leader, men are tools. He is successful to the extent
that he can get the men to work for him. Ordinarily, and on their own
initiative, people run on only 35 percent capacity. The success of a
leader comes of tapping the other 65 percent." This is a pretty
seasoned judgment on men in the mass, taking them as they come, the
mobile men, the slow starters, the indifferent and the shiftless.
Almost every man wants to do what is expected of him. When he does not
do so, it is usually because his instructions have been so doubtful as
to befog him or give him a reasonable excuse for noncompliance. This
view of things is the only tenable attitude an officer or enlisted
leader can take toward his subordinates. He will recognize the
exceptions, and if he does not then take appropriate action, it is
only because he is himself shiftless and is compassionate toward
others of his own fraternity.
It is the military habit to "plow deep in broken drums and shoot crap
for old crowns," as the poet, Carl Sandburg, put it. As much as any
other profession, and even possibly a little more, we take pride in
the pat solution, and in proof that long-applied processes amply meet
the test of newly unfolding experience. But despite all the jests
about the Gettysburg Map, we wouldn't know where we're going if we
couldn't be reasonably sure of where we've been.
Therefore, it is as well to say now that from all of the careful
searching made by the armed services as to the fighting
characteristics of Americans during World War II, not a great deal was
learned in addition to what was already well known, or surmised. The
criteria that had been used in the prior system of selection proved to
be substantially correct; at least, if it had faults, they were innate
in the complex problem of weighing human material, and were beyond
correction by any rule of thumb or judgment. Men were chosen to lead
because of personality, intelligence at their work, response to
orders, ability to lead in fatigues or in the social affairs of
organization, and disciplinary record. In combat these same men
carried 95 percent of the load of responsibility and provided the
dynamic for the attack. But in every unit, there was almost invariably
a small sprinkling of individuals, who having shown no prior ability
when measured by the customary yardsticks of courtesy, discipline and
work, became strong and vital in any situation calling for heroic
action. They could fight, they could lead, they knew what should be
done, they could persuade other men to rally around, and by these
things, they could command instantly the previously withheld respect
of their superiors.
Neither the scientific nor the military mind has yet been able to
provide the answer as to how men of this type--so indispensable to the
fighting establishment in the thing that matters most, though lacking
in strong surface characteristics--can be detected beforehand, and
conserved, instead of being wasted possibly in a labor or housekeeping
organization.
All concerned recognize the extreme importance of the problem, and
would like to do something about it. What is as yet not even vaguely
seen is the large possibility that the problem might be
self-liquidating if all junior officers became more concerned with
learning all they could about the private character and personal
nature of their subordinates. This does not mean invading their
privacy; but it implies giving every man a fair chance to open up and
to talk freely, without fear of contempt. It means studying the
background of a man even more carefully than one would read a map,
looking for the key to command of the terrain. These are usually
repressed men; many of the foreign-born are to be found among them;
they cover up because of pride, but they are not afraid of physical
danger. Once any man, and particularly a superior, gets through the
outer shell, he may have the effect of a catalyst on what is happening
inside. If such men did not have basic loyalty, they would never
fight. When at last they give their loyalty to an individual, they are
usually his to command and will go through hell for him.
There was an Oklahoma miner named Alvin Wimberley in 90th Division
during World War I. On the drill field, he could do nothing correctly.
He couldn't step off on the left foot; he would frequently drop his
piece while trying to do right shoulder. Solely because his case was
unfathomable, his platoon leader asked that he be taken to France with
the unit instead of separated with the culls. At the front, Wimberley
immediately took the lead in every detail of a dangerous sort, such as
exploding a mine field, or hunting for traps and snares. His nerve was
inexhaustible; his judgment sure. There was, after all, a simple key
to the mystery. Wimberley had led a solitary life as a dynamiter, deep
under ground. He was frightened of men, but danger was his element.
When he saw other men recoil at the thing which bothered him not at
all, he realized that he was the big man, though he only stood 5 feet
3 inches in issue socks.
To know men, it is not necessary to wet-nurse them, and no officer can
make a sorrier mistake than to take the overly nice, worrying attitude
toward them. This, after all, is simply the rule of the well-bred man,
rather than an item peculiar to the code of the military officer. But
it is a little less becoming in a service officer than in anyone else,
because, when a man puts on fighting clothes in the name of his
country, it is an insult to treat him as if he were a juvenile.
In any situation where men need to know one another better, someone
has to break the ice. Where does the main responsibility lie within a
military unit? True enough, the junior has to salute first, and in
some services is supposed to say, "Good morning!" first, though
beating a man to the draw with a greeting is one way to win him.
However, the main point is this: unless an officer has himself been an
enlisted man, it is almost impossible for him to know how formidable,
and even forbidding, rank at first seems to the eyes of the man down
under, even though he would be loath to say so.
Many recruits have such a mistaken hearsay impression of the United
States military system, that it is for them a cause for astonishment
that any officer enjoys free discussion with them. They feel at first
that there is a barrier there which only the officer is entitled to
cross; it takes them a little while to learn better.
But in the continuing relationship, it is the habit of the average
well-disciplined enlisted man to remain reticent, and talk only on
official matters, unless the officer takes the lead in such way as to
invite general conversation. For that matter, the burden is the same
anywhere in the service in relations between a senior officer and his
subordinates, and the former must take the lead if he expects to
really know his men.
Many newly joined officers believe, altogether mistakenly, that there
is some strange taboo against talking to men except in line of duty,
and that if caught at it, it will be considered _infra dig_. There is
always the hope that they will remain around long enough to learn
better.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WRITING AND SPEAKING
Other things being equal, a superior rating will invariably be given
to the officer who has persevered in his studies of the art of
self-expression, while his colleague, who attaches little importance
to what may be achieved through working with the language, will be
marked for mediocrity.
A moment's reflection will show why this has to be the case and why
mastery of the written and spoken word is indispensable to successful
officership.
As the British statesman, Disraeli, put it, "Men govern with words."
Within the military establishment, command is exercised through what
is said which commands attention and understanding and through what is
written which directs, explains, interprets or informs.
Battles are won through the ability of men to express concrete ideas
in clear and unmistakable language. All administration is carried
forward along the chain of command by the power of men to make their
thoughts articulate and available to others.
There is no way under the sun that this basic condition can be
altered. Once the point is granted, any officer should be ready to
accept its corollary--that superior qualification in the use of the
language, both as to the written and the spoken word, is more
essential to military leadership than knowledge of the whole technique
of weapons handling.
It then becomes strictly a matter of personal decision whether he will
seek to advance himself along the line of main chance or will take
refuge in the excuse offered by the great majority: "I'm just a simple
fighting file with no gift for writing or speaking."
How often these or similar words are heard in the armed services! And
the pity of it is that they are usually uttered in a tone indicating
that the speaker believes some special virtue attaches to his kind of
ignorance. There is the unmistakable innuendo that the man who pays
serious attention to the fundamentals of the business of communication
is somehow less possessed of sturdy military character than himself.
There could hardly be a more absurd or disadvantageous professional
conceit than this. It is the mark only of an officer who has no
ambition to properly qualify himself, and is seeking to justify his
own laziness.
Not all American military leaders have been experts at polishing a
phrase or giving clear expression and continuity to the thoughts which
made them useful in command. But of those who have excelled in the
conduct of great operations, at least four out of five made some mark
in the field of letters. A long list would include such names as U. S.
Grant, W. T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, John J. Pershing, James G.
Harbord, Henry T. Allen, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Jr.,
H. H. Arnold, Douglas MacArthur, William F. Halsey, W. B. Smith,
Joseph W. Stilwell, Holland M. Smith, and Robert L. Eichelberger among
many others.
Of them all, it can be said without exception that they acquired their
skill at self-expression by sustained practice which was part of a
self-imposed training in the interests of furthering their military
efficiency. No one of them was a born writer. There is no such thing.
Nor did any one of them owe his abilities as a writer to any other
person. Writers are self-made. But it is a reasonable speculation that
history might never have heard of the greater number of these men had
they not worked sedulously to become proficient with the pen as well
as with the sword. Granting that they had other sound military
qualities in the beginning, an acquired ability to express themselves
lucidly and with force became a touchstone to preferment. The same
thing holds true of their celebrated military contemporaries almost
without exception. Even those who had no public reputation for
authorship, and would have been ill at ease if called upon to speak to
an average audience, knew how to use the language in presenting their
thoughts to their staffs and their troops, whether the occasion called
for a succinct operational order, a doctrinal exposition or an
inspirational message on the eve of battle.
Wherever one looks, the same precept may be noted. It was not
coincidence merely, but related cause and effect, that Ferdinand Foch
was one of the ablest military writers of the twentieth century before
he won immortality on the field of war, that the elder von Moltke was
as skilled with ink as with powder, and that we still marvel at the
picture of the great von Steuben dictating drill manuals far into the
night so that there would be greater perfection in his formations on
the following day. The command of language was one of the main sources
of their power over the multitude.
As it was with these commanders, so it is with leadership at every
level: _Men who can command words to serve their thoughts and feelings
are well on their way to commanding men to serve their purposes._
All senior commanders respect the junior who has a facility for
thinking an idea through and then expressing it comprehensively in
clear, unvarnished phrases. Moreover, even when they are stilted in
their own manner of expression, they will warm to the man whose style
achieves strength through its ease and naturalness. They will quickly
make note of any young officer who is making progress in this
direction and will want to have him around. He is a rare bird in the
services, and for that reason his opportunities are far above the
average. Staff work could not be carried forward at any of its levels
if it were not for this particular talent, and command would lose a
great part of its magnetism.
Toward the building of a career, the best break that can come to any
young man is to have three or four places bidding simultaneously for
his services. There are possibly better arguments than that as to why
perfection in writing should be a main pursuit of the service officer,
such as the sense of personal attainment which comes of it.
Any man who has the brain to qualify for commission can make of
himself a competent writer. Because of natural limitations, he may
never come to excel in this art. But if he has had average schooling,
knows how to open a dictionary, can find his way to a library, is
willing to commit himself to long study and practice, particularly in
nonduty hours, and will finally free himself of the superstition that
writing is a game only for specialists, he can acquire all the skill
that is necessary to further his advance within the military
profession.
That is the great difference between writing ability and specialized
knowledge in such fields as electronics and atomic research.
But where should work begin? How about a little practical advice?
The only way to learn to write is to write. That is it--there is no
other secret than hard, unremitting practice. Most writers at the
start are mentally muscle-bound, and poorly coordinated. They have
thoughts in their heads. They think they can develop them clearly. But
when they try to apply a largely dormant vocabulary to the expression
of these thoughts, the result is stiff and selfconscious.
The only cure for this is constant mental exercise, with one's pen, or
over one's typewriter. After a man has written perhaps a half million
relatively useless words there comes, sometimes almost in a flash, and
at other times gradually, a mastery not only of words, but of phrases,
sentences and the composition of ideas. It is a kind of rhythmic
process, like learning to swim, or to row a boat, or navigate an
airplane. When a writer has at last conquered his element, his
personality and his character can be transmitted to paper. What is
said will reflect the force, adaptability, reason and musing of the
writer. In fact, the discipline through which one learns to write adds
substance to thought, whereby one's ideas are given body and
connection. Such common faults as wordiness, overstatement, faulty
sentence structure and weak use of words are gradually corrected. With
their passing, confidence grows. This does not mean, however, that the
task then becomes easy. Though its rewards will increase, good writing
continues to be a strain even to the man who does it well. Many
celebrated men of letters never get beyond the "sweating" stage, but
have to fight their way through a jungle of words, and rewrite almost
endlessly, before finding satisfaction in their product.
This description makes it all seem more than a little formidable. But
what was promised in the first place was that any service officer, who
will accept the necessary discipline, can make himself reasonably
proficient as a writer, and thereby further his professional progress.
What he writes about during the conditioning period makes very little
difference. It might be an operational order one night, a treatise on
discipline the next, a lecture to his men on the elements of combat
the third. Fortunately, the list of topics within the services and
directly applicable to their operations, is practically inexhaustible.
That is a main reason why the military establishment is a better
school for writing than perhaps any other place in our society.
Winston Churchill, whose gift of forceful expression is the envy of
all other writing men, won his literary spurs in his early twenties as
a soldier with the Malakand Field Force. He saw the essential
idea--that to learn English, he had literally to learn, just as though
he had been acquiring Latin or French. As a writer, his main strength
is his employment of Anglo-Saxon, the words of our common speech.
But simply to take regular exercise in composition is not quite
enough. Of it would come the shadow but not the substance. To progress
as a writer, one must become a student of the best things which have
been written by men who understand their craft. A military officer can
do that without going beyond the field of military studies, if that
should be his disposition, such is the richness and variation of
available works in this realm of literature. The purpose at hand is
not only to seek great ideas for their own sake but to make careful
note of the manner in which they are expressed. So doing, one
unconsciously invigorates his own powers and adopts techniques which
the masters have used to great advantage.
To paraphrase what a distinguished journalist once said on this
subject in a speech to young writers: "For an officer it is in the
first place a shame to be ignorant--ignorant, as not a few are, of
history and geography: and in the second place, it is a pity that any
officer should lack a vigor in writing which can be produced through
imitation of vigorous writers."
As to what is best worth seeking, a man can not go wrong by "falling
in love" with the works of a relatively limited number of authors who
kindle him personally. It is all right to widen the field
occasionally, for diversion, for contrast, for sharpening style, and
for balancing of ideas, but strength comes of finding a main line and
holding to it. No man can read a book with sympathetic understanding
without taking from it something that makes him more complex and more
potent.
The main test is in this: if you read a book and feel stirred by it,
even though alternately you strongly agree with certain of its
passages and warmly contend against others, something new has been
added. The writer is making you see things. Your own powers of
observation are being made more acute. All good writers are in a sense
hitch-hikers. While going along for the ride, and enjoying the essence
of some highly developed mind, they are not loath to study the
technique by which some other man develops his driving power, and to
make note of his strong words and best phrases for possible future
use.
It is a good habit to underscore passages in books which have
contributed something vital to one's own thought--always provided that
the books have not been borrowed.
Without mentioning names, we can take a cue from a man who some years
ago entered one of the services while still a youth. He had had little
formal education, but he began an earnest study of military
literature, and the search for knowledge whetted his thirst to join
the company of those who could speak to the world because they had
something to say. He read such books as were at hand, and clipped
pieces from magazines and newspapers which had particularly appealed
to him, for one reason or another. Whenever he saw a new word, he
wrote it down and sought the meaning in the dictionary, considering
whether it had a shade of meaning which added anything important to
his vocabulary. This done, he wrote sentences, many sentences,
employing his new words in various ways, until their use became
instinctive. On this foundation alone, he built his career as a
national writer. There was nothing extraordinary about this start and
the ultimate result. Literally thousands of Americans have qualified
themselves for one branch or another of the writing profession by what
they learned to do in military service. Too, an ability to "organize a
good paper" has been a large element in the success of most of the men
who have moved from the military circle into top posts in the
diplomatic service, in education or in industrial administration. Had
they been capable only of delegating this kind of work, their powers
would never have been recognized.
As a practical matter, it is better to concentrate on a few elementary
rules-of-thumb, such as are contained in the following list, than to
bog down attempting to heed everything that the pedants have said
about how to become a writer.
The more simply a thing is said the more powerfully it influences
those who read. Plain words make strong writing.
There is always one best word to convey a thought or a feeling. To
accept a weaker substitute, rather than to Search for the right
word, will deprive any writing of force.
Economy of words invigorates composition.
To quote Carl Sandburg: "Think twice before you use an adjective."
It is better to use the adverb because an adverb enhances the verb
and is active, whereas the adjective simply loads down the noun.
On the other hand, it is the verb that makes language live. Nine
times out of ten the verb is the operative word giving motion to
the sentence. Hence, placing the verb is of first importance in
giving strength to sentence structure.