The Armed Forces Officer Part 11

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 fort.i.tude.

Private Schneider, a youngster who loved dogs and played the violin, succ.u.mbed 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 n.o.bility 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 n.o.blest" 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 j.a.panese imprisonment during World War II give an a.n.a.lysis not unlike the chronicles of the Greeley party. In certain of the prisoners, character, and sanity with it, held fast against every circ.u.mstance.

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 circ.u.mference 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sociates 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 compet.i.tion.

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 repet.i.tion, 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 ent.i.ty and profit by transfusion of its moral strength.

_The absence of a common purpose is the chief source of unhappiness in any collection of individuals._ Lacking it, and the common standard of justice which is one of its chief agents, men become more and more separate units, each fighting for his own rights. Yet paradoxically, if an organic unity is to develop within any body of free men, drawn from a free society to serve its military inst.i.tutions, and if the fairest use is to be made of their possibilities, the processes of the inst.i.tution must embody respect for the dignity of the individual, for his rights, and not less, for his desire for worthwhile recognition.

The profile of every man depends upon the s.p.a.ce which others leave him. "Of himself," said Napoleon, "a man is nothing." But every man also contributes with his every act to the level of what his group may attain. One of the foremost leaders in the United States Navy in World War II said this about the integrity of personality: "Every person is unique. Human talents were never before a.s.sembled in exactly the same way that they have been put together in yourself. Nothing like you ever happened before. No one can predict with accuracy how you will grow in your particular combination of skills if allowed complete freedom of movement." If there is one word out of place in that statement, it is "complete;" no one has complete freedom but a buccaneer, and it is for the exercise of it that organized society swings him from a gibbet. It is only when personal freedom of action operates within an area limited by the rights and welfare of others that subordination, in its best sense, takes place. To direct a body of men toward the acceptance of this principle, so that thereby they may attain social coherence as a group and greater strength of personal character, is the most solid contribution that an officer can make to the arms of his country.

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

History confirms, and a study of the workings of the human mind supports one proposition which many of the great captains of war have accepted as a truism. "There are no bad troops: there are only bad leaders." Taking on percentage what we already know of our average American raw material, as it had proved itself in every war, and as it has been studied in such a laboratory as the camp at Cape Sabine, no exception can be taken to that statement. On the other hand, we know equally well that leadership can be taught and it can be acquired.

Much of our best material lies fallow, awaiting a hand on the shoulder, and the touch of other men's confidence, before it can step forward. This is not because men with a sound potential for leading must necessarily have an outward air of modesty among their major virtues, but because a man--particularly a young man--cannot gain a sense of his power among his fellows except as they give him their confidence, and vivify his natural desire to be something better than the average. There is no indication that at any stage of his career Gen. George S. Patton was an outwardly modest man. But in reviewing the milestones in his own making, he underscored the occasion when General Pershing, then commanding the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, supported Lieutenant Patton's judgment against that of a major. These are his words: "My act took high moral courage and built up my self-confidence." It would seem altogether clear, however, that Pershing had more than a little to do with it. Col. W. T. Sherman had to be kindled by the warm touch of Mr. Lincoln and steeled by the example and strong faith of Gen. U. S. Grant before he could believe in his own capacity for generalship. We all live by information and not by sight. We exist by faith in others, which is the source toward knowing greater faith in ourselves.

About the elements of human nature, it is good that an officer should know enough that he will be able to win friends and influence people.

But it is folly to believe that he should pursue his studies in this subject until he habitually looks at men as would a scientist putting some specimen under a powerful microscope.

Self-consciousness is by no means a serious fault in anyone confronted by a new set of responsibilities, and working among new companions.

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

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

CHAPTER TWELVE

GROUP NATURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The military crowd requires, above all, maturity of judgment in its leaders. It cannot be patronized safely. Nor can it be treated in the cla.s.sroom manner, as if wisdom were being dispensed to schoolboys.

When it has been remiss, it expects to catch unshirted h.e.l.l for its failings, and though it may smart under a just bawling out, it will feel let down if the commander quibbles. But any officer puts himself on a skid, and impairs the strength of his unit, if he takes to task all hands because of the wilful failings of a minority. Strength comes to men when they feel that they are grown up and as a body are in control and under control, since it amounts to the same thing; it is only when men unite toward a common purpose that control becomes possible. In this respect, the servant is in fact the master of the situation, fully realizes it, and is not unprepared to accept proportionate responsibility.

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

This latter characteristic in the ma.s.ses of men composing any organization is the final statement of moral responsibility for success. Within military forces, an element of command is owned by every man who is doing his duty with intelligence and imagination.

That puts him on the side of the angels, and the pressure which he exerts is felt not only by his subordinates but by those topside who are doing less. Many a lazy skipper has snapped out of it and at last begun to level with his organization because he felt the hot breath of a few earnest subordinates on his neck. Many a battle unit has held to ground which it had been ready to forsake because of the example of an aid man who stayed at his work and refused to forsake the wounded.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was thinking on these things when he said during World War II: "There is among the ma.s.s of individuals who carry rifles in war a great amount of ingenuity and efficiency. If men can talk naturally to their officers, the product of their resourcefulness becomes available to all." But the art of open communication requires both receiving and sending, and the besetting problem is to get officers to talk naturally to men.

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

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

This was the key to the phenomenal success of his system. Within 6 weeks after he began work at Valley Forge, the Continental Army was on a new footing of self-confidence. His personal diligence in inquiring into the conduct of all officers toward their men, and his zeal in checking the accoutrement and carriage of every soldier established within the Army its first standard of inspection. Officers began to divide their scant rations with their men so that they would look better. But though he drilled the men of Valley Forge in marching and maneuver, Steuben paid no attention to the manual of arms, and let that wait until after he had gone into battle with these same forces.

He explained why in these words: "Every colonel had introduced a system of his own and those who had taken the greatest pains were naturally the most attached to their work. Had I destroyed their productions, they would have detested me. I therefore preferred to pay no special attention to this subject until I had won their confidence." To take hold at the essential point and postpone action on the relatively unimportant, to respect a worthy pride and natural dignity in other men, and finally, to demonstrate that there is a better way in order to win men's loyalty and to use loyalty as the portal to more constructive collective thought--all of these morals shine in this one object lesson. The most revealing light upon the character of Steuben comes of the episode in which he had one Lieutenant Gibbons arrested for an offense, which he later learned another had committed. He then went before the Regiment. It was raining hard, but he bared his head and asked Gibbons to come forward.

"Sir," he said, "the fault which was committed might, in the presence of an enemy, have been fatal. Your Colonel tells me you are blameless.

I ask your pardon. Return to your command."