The Armed Forces Officer Part 12

Mistakes will occur. Tempers will go off half-c.o.c.ked even among men of good habit. Action will be taken on impulse rather than full information, despite every warning as to its danger. But no officer who has ever done serious injustice to a subordinate can do less than Steuben did, if he wants to keep respect. Admiral Halsey wrote about how he had once relieved one of his Captains in battle, found months later that he had misjudged him, and then tried by every means within his power to make redress.

The main connecting link between the perfecting of group action in training and the end product of unity and economy of operations in battle has never been better than imperfectly expressed even by such masters as de Saxe and von Steuben, who felt it by profound instinct.

The time-honored explanation is that when men accustom themselves to obeying orders, the time ultimately arrives when they will obey by habit, and that the habit will carry over into any set of circ.u.mstances requiring response to orders. This has the quality of relative truth; it is true so far as it goes, but it undersells the major values.

The heterogeneous crowd is swayed by the voices of instinct. Properly trained, any military unit, being a h.o.m.ogeneous body, should be swayed by the voice of training. Out of uniformity of environment comes uniformity of character and spirit. From moving and acting together men grow to depend upon, and to support, each other, and to subordinate their individual wills to the will of the leader. And if that were all that training profited them, they would rarely win a battle or a skirmish under modern conditions!

Today the supreme value of any training at arms which fixes habit is that, under conditions of absolute pressure, it enables men to take the primary steps essential to basic security without too great taxing of their mental faculties and moral powers; this leaves their senses relatively free to cope with the unexpected. The unforeseen contingency invariably happens in battle, and its incidence supplies the supreme test of the efficacy of any training method. Surprise has no regard for the importance of rank; in combat any unit's fortune may pivot on the judgment and initiative of the file who has last joined it. Therefore the moral object in training is stated without any qualification in words once used by a wise Frenchman, Dr. Maurice Campeaux: "_It should be the subordination of the individual's will to the leader's, and not its surrender or destruction._" All training at all levels has a dual object--to develop us all as leaders of men and followers of leaders. Its technics are most perfect when they serve evenly these parallel purposes. In consequence, when any officer thinks only on: "What is policy?" rather than: "What should policy be for the good of the service?" he has trained his sights too low.

Even in modern warfare, however, there are exceptional circ.u.mstances in which success is altogether dependent upon the will and judgment of the leader, and undeviating response to his orders. The commander of a b.u.t.toned-up tank is the master of its fortunes, and what happens for better or worse is according to the strength of his personal control.

Within a submerged submarine during action, the situation is still more remarkable. Only one man, the commander of the ship, can see what is occurring, and he only with one eye; the resolving of every situation depends on his judgment as to what should be done. Yet those who have the surest knowledge of this service have said that the main problem in submarine warfare is to find a sufficient body of officers who will rise superior to the intricacies of their complicated machines, and will make their own opportunities and take advantage of them. That is hardly unique. The same quality is the hallmark of greatness in any individual serving with a combat arm. The military crowd will double its effort for a leader when success rides on his coattails; but he needs first to capture their loyalty by keeping his contracts with them, sweetening the ties of organization, and convincing them that he is a man to be followed. His luck (which despite all plat.i.tudes to the contrary is an element in success) begins when his men start to believe that he was born under a lucky star. But they are not apt to be so persuaded unless he can make his outfit shine in comparison with all others. The best argument for establishing a low VD score and a high disciplinary and deportment record within any unit is that it convinces higher authority that the unit is well run and is trying, and is therefore ent.i.tled to any extra consideration that may be requested. All who have been closely identified with the inner working of any higher headquarters in the American establishment know that it works this way. On the other hand, the fundamental idea is almost as old as the hills. Turning back to Cicero, we will find these words: "Neither the physician nor the general can ever, however praiseworthy he may be in the theory of his art, perform anything highly worthwhile without experience in the rules laid down for the observation of all small duties." The Old Roman added that between men nothing is so binding as a similarity of good dispositions.

Within the military crowd, and granting to each the same quality of 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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sing 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 h.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce.

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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 compet.i.tion 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 fort.i.tude fit him for the leading of men, he will be in better adjustment with his circ.u.mstances 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-a.s.surance 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 grat.i.tude 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 c.o.c.kiness, 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 a.s.sumption 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 cla.s.sification 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 reb.u.t.tal--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-cla.s.sify 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, cla.s.sify." 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 b.u.t.toned 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 doc.u.ment 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.