In one of his little-known passages, Robert Louis Stevenson did the perfect portrait of the man who finally failed at everything, because he just never learned how to take hold of his work.
It goes like this: "His career was one of unbroken shame. He did not drink. He was exactly honest. He was never rude to his employers. Yet he was everywhere discharged. Bringing no interest to his duties, he brought no attention. His day was a tissue of things neglected and things done amiss. And from place to place and from town to town he carried the character of one thoroughly incompetent."
No one would say that the picture is overdrawn or that the poor devil got other than his just deserts. In the summing up, the final judgment that is put on a man by other men depends on his value as a working hand. If he has other serious personality faults, they will be overlooked as somewhat beside the point, provided that he levels with his job. But if he embodies all of the surface virtues, and is shiftless, any superior with sense will mark him for the discard, and his coworkers will breathe a sigh of relief when he has gone on his way.
Within the armed services, the tone of grudging admiration is never missing from such altogether familiar comments as:
"He's a queer duck but he has what it takes."
"We can't get along with him but we can't get along without him."
By such words, we unconsciously yield the palm to the man who, whatever his other shortcomings, excels us in application to duty. One of the worst rascals ever raised in Britain said that while he wouldn't give a farthing for virtue, he would pay 10,000 pounds for character, because, possessing it, he would be able to sell it for much more.
Is it possible then that men of thoroughly good intentionswill neglect the one value which a knave says is worth prizing? Not only is it possible; it happens every day! We see officers of the armed establishment who, thinking themselves employed all day, would still, if they had to make an honest reckoning of the score after tattoo sounded, be compelled to say that they had done exactly nothing. Lacking some compelling duty, they may have read several hours mechanically, neither studying what was said, making notes, nor reflecting on the value and accuracy of it. Such papers as they signed, they had glanced over perfunctorily. If any subordinate approached them with some small matter, they reacted by trying to get rid of him as quickly as possible. When they entered the company of their fellow officers, they partook of it as little as they could, not bothering to enter vigorous conversation, failing to make any note of the character and manner of their associates, and learning not at all from the words that were said.
It is all good enough, and yet strangely it is neither good nor is it enough. That idea of what life in the officer corps is meant to be simply cannot stand up under the pressures of modern operations. True enough, assignments do not all have the same level of work requirement, and one is sometimes handed a wide open opportunity to goldbrick. But taking advantage of it is like the dope habit; the more that it is sniffed, the greater becomes the craving of the nervous system. It is harder to throw off sloth than to keep it from climbing onto one's back in the first place. And finally, the truth of the matter is this, that there is never any assignment given an armed service officer which entitles him to waste any of the working hours of his day. Though he be marking time in a casual depot or replacement center, there still awaits his attention the entire range of military studies, through which he can advance his own abilities. And if he is not of a mind for tactics, map-reading, military law, and training doctrine, it still follows that the study of applied psychology, English composition, economic geography and foreign languages will further his career. Just as a rough approximation, any officer's work week should comprise about 50 percent execution and the other half study, if he is to makethe best use of his force. The woods are loaded with go-getters who claim they are men of action and therefore have no need of books; that they are "the flat-bottoms who can ride over the dew." Though they are a little breezier, they are of the same bone and marrow as the drone who is always counseling halfspeed. "Don't sweat; just get by; extra work means short life; you're better off if they don't notice you." This chant can be heard by anyone who cares to listen; it's the old American invitation to mediocrity. But while mediocre, as commonly used, means "indifferent, ordinary," it also has in old English the odd meaning "a young monk who was excused from performing part of a monk's duties." And that, too, fits. It is always worthwhile to ask a few very senior officers what they think of these jokers who refuse to study. They will say that the higher up you go, the more study you have to make up, because of what you missed somewhere along the line. They will say also that when they got to flag or star rank, things didn't ease off a bit.
But not all wisdom is to be found in books, and at no time is this more true than when one is breaking in. What is expected of the novice in any field is that he will ask questions,smart ones if possible, but if not, then questions of all kinds until he learns that there is no such item as reveille oil and that skirmish line doesn't come on spools. For on one point there should be no mistake: the newly appointed officer is a novice. Though many things go with the commission, the assumption that he is all wise to all ways of the service, and will automatically fit into his element as neatly as a loaded ship settles down to its Plimsoll's mark, just isn't among them. Within the services, seniors are rarely, if ever, either patronizing or intolerant of the greenness of a new officer; they just stand ready to help him. And if he doesn't permit them to have that chance, because he would rather pretend that he knows it all, they will gradually become bored with him because of the manifest proof that he knows so very little.
Wisdom begins at the point of understanding that there is nothing shameful about ignorance; it is shameful only when a man would rather remain in that state than cultivate othermen's knowledge.There is never any reason why he should hesitate, for it is better to be embarrassed from seeking counsel than to be found short for not having sought it.
In one of the toughest trades in the world of affairs—that of the foreign correspondent—initial dependence upon one's professional colleagues is the only certain stepping stone to success. A man arrives in strange country feeling very much alone. His credentials lack the weight they had at home. The prestige of his newspaper counts for almost nothing. Even the name of his home city stirs little respect. The people, their ways, their approaches and their taboos are foreign to him. This sweeping environmental change is crushing to the spirit; it would impose an almost insuperable moral handicap if the newcomer could not go to other Americans who have already worked the ground, ask them how the thing is done, seek their advice about dealing with the main personalities, learn from them about the facilities for processing copy, and soak up everything they have to say about private and professional procedures. Then as the ropes grow gradually familiar in the grasp, confidence and nervous energy come flooding back.
Surely there is a close parallel between this experience and that of the journeyman moving from the familiar soil of civilianism to theterra incognitaof military life. But there is also the marked difference that everyone he meets can tell him something that he needs to know. More particularly, if he has the ambition to excel as a commander of men, rather than as a technician, then the study of human nature and of individual characteristics within the military crowd become a major part of his training. That is the prime reason why the life of any tactical leader becomes so very interesting, provided he possesses some imagination. Everything is grist for his mill. Moreover, despite the wholesale transformation in the scientific and industrial aspects of war, there has been no revolution in the one thing that counts most. Ardant du Picq's words, "The heart of man does not change," are as good now as when he said them in an earlier period of war. Whatever one learns for certainabout the nature of man as a fighting animal can be filed for ready reference; the hour will come when it will be useful.
We have emphasized the value of becoming curious, and of asking questions about what one doesn't know, and have said that even when the questions are a little on the dumb side, it does no harm. But the ice gets very thin at one point. The same question asked over and again, like the same error made more than once, will grate the nerves of any superior. It is the mark of inattention, and the beginning of that "tissue of things neglected and things done amiss" which put Stevenson's oddball character in the ditch. When an officer lets words go in one ear and out the other like water off a duck's back, to quote the Dutch janitor, he is chasing rainbows by rubbing fur in the wrong direction.
Ideally, an officer should be able to do the work of any man serving under him. There are even some command situations in which the ideal becomes altogether attainable, and a wholly practicable objective. For it may be said without qualification, that if he not only has this capability, but demonstrates it, so that his men begin to understand that he is thoroughly versed in the work problems which concern them,he can command them in any situation. This is the real bedrock of command capacity, and nothing else so well serves to give an officer an absolutely firm position with all who serve under him. As said elsewhere in this book, within the armed establishment, administration is not of itself a separate art, or a dependable prop to authority. When administrators talk airily of things that they clearly do not understand, they are simply using the whip on the team without having control of the reins.
However, the greater part of military operation in present days is noteworthy for the extreme diversity and complexity of its parts, and instead of becoming more simplified, the trend is toward greater elaboration. It is obviously absurd to expect that any officer could know more about radio repair than his repairman, more about mapping than his cartographical section, more about moving parts than a gunsmith, more about radar than a specialist in electronics and more about cypher than acryptographer. If the services were to set any such unreasonable standard for the commissioned body, all would shortly move over into the lunatic fringe. Science has worked a few wonders for the military establishment but it hasn't told us how to produce that kind of man.
Plainly, there must be a somewhat different approach to the question of what kind of knowledge an officer is expected to possess, or the requirement would be unreasonable and unworkable.
The distinction lies in the difference between the power to do a thing well and that of being able to judge when it is well done.A man can say that a book is bad, though not knowing how to write one himself, provided he is a student of literature. Though he has never laid an egg, he can pass fair judgment on an omelette, if he knows a little about cookery, and has sampled many good eggs, and detected a few that were overripe.
"He who lives in a house," said Aristotle, "is a better judge of it being good or bad than the builder of it. He can say not only these things, but wherein its defects consist. Yet he might be quite unable to cure the chimney, or to draw out a plan for his rooms which would suit him better. Sometimes he can even see where the fault is which caused the mischief, and yet he may not know practically how to remedy it."
Adjustment to a job, and finally, mastery of it, by a service officer, comes of persistent pursuit of this principle. The main technique is study and constant reexamination of criteria. To take the correct measure of standards of performance, as to the value of the work itself, and as to the abilities of personnel, one must become immersed in knowledge of the nature,and purpose, of all operations. There is no shortcut to this grasp of affairs. The sack is filled bean by bean. Patient application to one thing at one time is the first rule of success; getting on one's horse and riding off in all directions is the prelude to failure. All specialists like to talk about their work; the interest of any other man is flattering; all men grow in knowledge chiefly by picking other men's brains. Book study of the subject,specialized courses in the service schools, the instructive comments of one's superiors, the informed criticism of hands further down the line and the weighing of human experience, at every source and by every recourse, are the means of an informed judgment. It was the scientist, Thomas Huxley who reminded us that science is only "organized common sense."
Other things being equal, the prospect for any man's progress is largely determined by his attitude. It is the receptive mind, rather than the oracle, which inspires confidence. General Eisenhower said at one point that, after 40 years, he still thought of himself as a student on all military questions, and that he consciously mistrusted any man who believed he had the full and final answer to problems which by their nature were ever-changing.
But priggishness about knowledge is not more hurtful than is the arbitrary use of it to limit action.To rule by work rather than to work by rulesmust be the abiding principle in military operations, for finally, when war comes, nothing else will suffice. In peacetime, absolute accountability is required, because dollar economy in operations is a main object. This entails adherence to rigid forms, time-consuming, but still necessary. In many of war's exigencies, these forms frequently have to be swept aside, to bring victory as quickly as possible and to save human life. In the book, "General Kenney Reports," that great air commander spoke at one point of a difficulty in one of his combat groups. "It was a lot of hard-working earnest kids, officers and enlisted men, who were doing the best they could under poor living and eating conditions. But their hands were tied by the colonel in command whose passion for paper work effectually stopped the issuing of supplies and the functioning of the place as an air depot should. He told me that he thought 'it was about time these combat units learned how to do their paper work properly.' I decided that it would be a waste of time to fool with him so I told him to pack up to go home on the next plane."
Though this is a tragic example of wrong-headedness, it is by no means unique. The profession moves ahead, and nationalsecurity advances with it, because of men who have the confidence and courage to toss the rule book out the window when it doesn't fit the situation, and who dare to trust their own decisions and improvise swiftly.
But in all walks of life, this willingness to take hold of the reins firmly is by no means common among men in relatively subordinate positions who can play it safe by falling back on "SOP."
But there is also a far wider vista than that which is to be viewed only within the services themselves, and its horizons are almost infinite. The American way in warfare utilizes everything within the national system which may be applied to a military purpose toward the increase of training and fighting efficiency. Much of our potential strength lies in our industrial structure, our progress in science, our inventiveness and our educational resources. Toward the end that all of these assets will be given maximum use, and every good idea which can be converted to a military purpose will be in readiness to serve the nation when war comes, there must be a continuing meeting of minds between military leadership and the leaders and experts in these various fields during peace.
That union cannot be perfected, however, unless there is a sufficient number of men on both sides of the table who can think halfway into the field of the man opposite. Just as the civilian expert in electronics, airplane manufacture or motion picture production needs to know more about the military establishment's problem and requirements if he is to do his part, the service officer with whom he is dealing needs to be informed on industry's resources, possibilities and limitations if he is to enable the civilian side to do its part well. The same for science. The same for education, and all other backers of the fighting force.
An enlightened Englishman, D. W. Brogan, in a book written during World War II, "The American Character," gave us this thought: "The American officer must think in terms of material resources, existing but not organized in peacetime and taking much time and thought and experiment by trial and error tomake available in wartime. He finds that his best peacetime plans are inadequate for one basic reason: that any plan which in peacetime really tried to draw adequately on American resources would cause its author to be written off as a madman; and in wartime, it would prove to have been inadequate, pessimistic, not allowing enough for the practically limitless resources of the American people—limitless once the American people get ready to let them be used. And only war can get them ready for that. The American officer can draw then, but not before, on an experience in economic improvization and in technical adaptation which no other country can equal."
This is true to the last syllable, and it means in essence that unless the American officer can think of the whole nation as his workshop, and along with his other duties, will apply himself as a student, seeking to understand more and more about the richness and the adaptability of our tremendous resources, neither he nor the country will be relatively ready when war comes.
There is a last point to be made on the matter of attitude. The most resolute opposition to changes in any system usually comes from those who control them. That is universally true, and not peculiar to military systems; but the services are foremost in recognizing that, as a consequence, the encouragement of original thought at the lower levels is essential to over-all progress.
All depends upon the manner. We can ponder the words of William Hazlitt, "A man who shrinks from a collision with his equals or superiors will soon sink below himself; we improve by trying our strength with others, not by showing it off." They are good so far as they go, but something new should be added. There is a vast difference between contending firmly for ideas that seem progressive when one is reasonably sure of one's data, and the habit of throwing one's weight around through a mistaken belief that this of itself manifests an independence of spirit which inspires respect.
Truculence can never win the day. Restraint, tolerance, a sense of humor and of proportion and the force of logic are the marks of the man qualified for intellectual leading. Within theservices, even though he has no great rank, there is practically nothing he cannot carry through, if his proposals have the color of reason and propriety, and if he will keep his head, keep his temper, and keep his word.
An admiring contemporary spoke of Paul G. Hoffman, the director of the European Recovery Program, as "the kind of man who if tossed through the air would always pick out the right trapeze."
Within any military organization, there is always a number of such men, enlisted and commissioned. They know how and where to take hold, even in the face of a totally unexpected and unnerving situation, and they have what amounts to an instinct for doing the right thing in a decisive moment.
If it were not so, no captain of the line would ever be able to manage a company in battle, and no submarine commander would be able to cope with an otherwise overwhelming danger. These men are the foundation of unit integrity. The successful life of organization depends upon husbanding, and helping them to cultivate, their own powers, which means that their initiative and vigor must never be chilled by supercilious advice and thoughtless correction.
They will go ahead and act responsibly on their own when given the confidence, and if they want it, the friendship, of their commander. But they cannot be treated like little children. The lash will ruin them and the curb will merely subdue that which needs to be brought forward. As in handling a horse with a good temper and a good mouth, nothing more is needed than that gentle touch of the rein which signals that things are under control.
From where the executive sits, the main secret of building strength within organization comes of identifying such men, and of associating one's authority with theirs, so it is unmistakable in whose name they are speaking and acting. One of the acid tests of qualification in officership is the ability properly to delegate authority, to put it in the best hands, and thereafter to uphold them. If an officer cannot do that, and if he is mistrustful of all power save his own, he cannot command in peace, and when he goes into battle, his unit strength will fragment like an exploding bomb, and the parts will not be rewelded until some stronger character takes hold.
Command is not a prerogative, but rather a responsibility to be 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 requireimagination, 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 carefulsearching 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; manyof 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 consideredinfra dig. There is always the hope that they will remain around long enough to learn better.
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 unmistakableinnuendo 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 succinctoperational 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 hadaverage 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 waythrough 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, itis 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 builthis 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 list of suggestions could be extended indefinitely. But enough has already been said to stake out a main line for those who have already decided that this subject deserves their interest.
A majority of the world's most gifted writers would in all probability be struck dumb if put before an audience; though dealing confidently with ideas, they lack confidence when dealing with people. The military officer has need of both talents, and as to where the accent should be placed, it is probably more important that he should speak well than that his writing prose should be polished. A unit commander may permit a clerk or a subordinate to do the greater part of his paper work, either because his own time is taken with other duties or because he is awkward at it, but if he permits any other voice to dominate the councils of the organization, he soon ceases to exercise moral authority over it.
Of this there is no question. The judgment men take of their superior is formed as much by what he says and how he says it as by his action.
The matter of nerve is a main element in speaking. When an officer is ill at ease, fidgety and not to the point, the vote of his command for the time being is "no confidence," and so long ashe remains that way, they will not change, no matter though his good will shines forth through other acts.
On the other hand, the military crowd is an extremely sympathetic audience. It has to be; it is drawing pay for so being. But even if that were not true, the ranks have a generous spirit and are ever disposed to give the newcomer an even break. If he meets them confidently and calmly, measures his words, smiles at his own mistakes and breaks it off when he has covered his subject, they'll pay no attention to his little fumbles, and they'll approve him. There is no better way to pick up prestige than through instruction or discourse which commands attention, for despite all that is said in favor of the "strong, silent man," troops like an officer who is outgiving, and who has an intelligence that they can respect because they have seen it at work.
As forhowan officer should talk to men, his manner and tone should be no different than if he were addressing his fellow officers, or for that matter, a group of his intellectual and political peers from any walk of life. If he is stuffy, he will not succeed anywhere. If he affects a superior manner, that is a mark of his inferiority. If he is patronizing, and talks to grown men as a teacher might talk to a class of adolescents, the rug, figuratively, will be pulled from under him. His audience will put him down as a chump.
It is curiously the case that the junior officer who can't get the right pitch when he talks to the ranks will also be out of tune when he talks to his superiors. This failing is a sign mainly that he needs practice in the school of human nature. By listening a little more carefully to other men, he may himself in time attain maturity.
Concerning subject matter, it is better always to aim high than to take the risk of shooting too low. It is too often the practice to spell out everything in words of one syllable so that the more witless files in the organization will be able to understand it. When that is done, it insults the intelligence of the keenest men, and nothing is added to their progress. The target should be the intellect of the upper 25 or 30 percent. Whenthey are stimulated and informed, they will bring the others along, and even those who do not fully understand all that was under discussion will have heard something to which to aspire.The habit of talking down to troops is one of the worst vices that can afflict an officer.
There are no dull lecture topics; there are only dull lecturers. A little eager research will enliven any subject under the sun. Good lecturing causes men's imaginations to be stirred by vivid images. Real good is accomplished only when they talk to each other of what they have heard and sharpen their impressions. Schopenauer somewhere observes that "people in general have eyes and ears, but not much else—little judgment and even little memory," which isn't far wrong. Consequently, competent lecturing entails the employment of every technique which can be used to hammer a point home. In this way, a truth or a lesson has a better chance of adhering because it is identified with some definite image. Simply to illuminate this point, it is noted that the jests which best stick in the memory are those which are associated with some incongruous situation. To relate a pertinent anecdote, to provide an apt quotation from some well-known authority and to draw upon our own rich battle history for illustrative materials are but a few of the means of freshening any discussion and sharpening its purpose. Men are always ready to listen to the story of other men's experience provided that it is told with vigor. And insofar as combat is concerned, such teaching is in point, for what has happened once will happen again.
For his way as an instructor of young infantry officers of the A. E. F. in 1918, Lt. Col. H. M. Hutchinson of the British Army was awarded our D. S. M. Officers who sat at his feet at Gondrecourt were unlikely ever to forget the point of such an anecdote as:
"There will be no 'Stack arms' in my army. It is a thing one sees on a brewer's calendar—The Soldier's Dream—showing a brave private sleeping under a stack of rifles which it will take him a good half-hour to untangle when the call comes to stand to. No, a soldier had better carry the rifle with him to hismeals, have it beside him always, lavish his care upon it, and in short treat it more like a wife than a weapon.
"I am reminded of the times in South Africa when we would come to a country inn where a chap could stop for beer. Well, a soldier would walk into the place, and immediately he would stand his rifle in a corner—like an umbrella, you know—'We've arrived!'—and he'd get well into his beer and a song, say, and suddenly firing would break out on the inn from four sides.
"It seemed that a Boer had slipped into the entry and picked up all the rifles and passed them around to his mates in the bushes, and—well—there you are!"
As a cadet and later as an instructor at Sandhurst, Colonel Hutchinson well knew the usefulness of the anecdote in catching and holding the attention of the young. Who could forget the lesson in this, related at Gondrecourt:
"In my youth I was a dashing ignoramus with clearer ideas than I now have on the line of demarcation between the officer and his men. They sent me out to South Africa during the trouble and I brought a detachment into a country village. It seemed quite unpromising but I was told of a sort of place 3 miles in the country that you would call a chateau in France. So I cantered out and spent the night, turning my men over to a sergeant-major. After a refreshing breakfast along in the middle of the morning—the late middle of the morning—I rode back into town, but try as I might I could not locate a single one of my men.
"Now nothing, you know, is as ineffective in a war as an officer without his men. Well, I spent the day in agony and it was not until along at dusk that the first of the blighters straggled in—quite drunk, all of them, and swearing to a man that they had engaged in five ferocious battles. It seems that about 2 miles away, in a barn, they had come on a hogshead of ginger brandy, and had stayed with it to the bitter end. Need I say that it was a great lesson to me, and that from then on I was never billeted farther than 15 rods from my men.
"As a matter of fact, I love ginger brandy."
Or this, in which the whole lesson of exactitude in the written communication is implicit:
"Now on the subject of messages, it might be well to say immediately that as far as I know no one ever received a written message during a battle. They may be written, but that I think is as far as it goes. However, they are occasionally received before and after battles, and in this connection let me say that it is no earthly good writing generalities to signify times and places.
"I mean to say, suppose you are writing a message and you write 'Report after breakfast.' Well, to Sergeant Ramrod it might mean stand-to at 3 in the morning; while to Captain Brighteyes it would mean, say, 8 o'clock. But to Colonel Blue-fish it would signify some time after 11, depending quite a bit on how the old fellow felt.
"So it is better to say 7 o'clock in the morning, if that is what you mean, for after all there is only one 7 o'clock in the morning. And, by the way, I must warn you chaps against the champagne on sale in the Cafe de l'Univers down here in the square. It is made in the basement—of potatoes."
On as simple and basic a thing as continuing liaison between small units, the Colonel's listeners never forgot his elementary parable:
"One rule is about all a chap can handle in a battle, and as good a one as any to remember is to keep in some sort of touch with the chaps to your right and left. If you do this—and I dare say you Americans will have as much trouble as ourselves in remembering to—then a great deal of distress to yourselves and all hands will be obviated.
"Now here we have a triangular wood. There is to be an attack, and the objective is this line beyond the wood. So on this side of the wood at the hour of attack the Welsh Guards go forward—and on this side, here, the Inniskilling Fusiliers, and a tremendous battle ensues. Well, after an hour or two, with not much progress, it is discovered that the Welsh Guards have been firing into the Inniskilling Fusiliers, and the Fusiliers have been firing into the Welsh. This is thought a bit thick,you know, even in the confusion of battle. So eventually it is stopped."
Some of the experts warn the lecturer who is only a beginner against the use of humor, commenting that if a joke is unlaughed at, it is disconcerting to all concerned. The only intelligent answer to that is: "Well, what of it?" The speaker who is going to cringe every time one of his passages falls a little flat had best not start. This happens at times to every lecturer; there are good days and bad days, live audiences and sour ones. If a man takes his work seriously, it is hardly within nature for him to harden his emotions against an unexpectedly dull reaction. But he can keep from ever showing that he is upset if as a speaker he consciously forms the habit of rapidly driving on from one point to another.
Thus as to the use of humor in public address, it is not only an asset but almost a necessity. It is better to try with it, and to fall flat occasionally, thereby sharpening one's own wit through better understanding of what goes and what does not, than to attempt to go along humorlessly. Said William Pitt: "Don't tell me of a man's being able to talk sense. Everyone can talk sense. Can he talk a little nonsense?" Even more to the point is the remark of Thomas Hardy that men thin away to insignificance quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable. Fighting is much too serious a trade to have a large place for men who are dry as dust.
One of the spellbinders of ancient Greece, we are told, orated on the sands with his mouth filled with pebbles. In World War I, it was the custom of many higher commanders to take their officers out for voice exercises and have them talk through 150 feet of thicket; they were not satisfied unless the words came through distinctly on the far side. If, under average acoustical conditions, a military officer cannot get across to five hundred men, he needs to improve his voice placement. It is remarkable what miracles can be worked by consistent exercise of the vocal cords.
The final thought is that it is all a matter of buildup. Anofficer can cut his audience to his own size, and strengthen his powers and his confidence as he goes along. That is his supreme advantage. He can start with a short talk to a minor working detail and move from that to a more formal address before a slightly larger group. By taking it gradually, and increasing his store of knowledge in the interim period, he will see the time come when he can hold any audience in the hollow of his hand. This is precisely the routine which was followed by most of the military leaders who have been celebrated for their command of speech.