The English of military communications

by William Addleman Ganoe

PREFACE

This course of lessons has for its sole object a demonstration to the military man that rhetoric is a big part of his profession. If he sees this advantage early it is hoped that he will not slight his rich language as so many of us have done to our later regret. Vocational training in English! That is practically what this book is. It is recognizing rhetoric for the first time as a separate study in the field service regulations. Just as we take up topography, engineering, sanitation, and supply as sciences by themselves in order to fit our efficiency into the team work of battle later, so here we apply ourselves to that part of field work which helps us state our ideas in a proper military manner.

The course is in no way tactics, but it forms an excellent primer to tactics. It leads up to and aids in the solution of tactical problems by passing over military ground. Because it is a combination of analysis and synthesis, rhetoric, as we know, is, unlike the exact sciences, purely a secondary subject. Its material, whether of poetry, essay, or fiction, is indiscriminate in its selection of matter so long as the matter is good. The idea in this book is to make both the material and the treatment count—to place the emphasis upon the manner of expressing oneself and to let the student see incidentally the interesting military features as he is passing along. He will be learning what he has never before had the opportunity of taking up separately, and what will lead him more easily into intricate tactical paths afterwards.

Some will criticise the book in that the author is not conforming to the principles which he is enunciating. They will say, “He tells us to boil our communications to the clearest minimum while he himself deals in reiteration and illumination.” Although this objection appears just, it is nevertheless cursory. A closer view will reveal the fact that the purpose and readers of communications are quite different from the purpose and readers of a text book. One of the first principles we learn in rhetoric is to suit our treatment and diction to our purpose and readers. Commanders await with interest and expectancy the words of a field message or order. Students await with skepticism or inertia the chapters of their lessons. Although we rightly can prescribe the severest clearness for something which is bound to be absorbed, we cannot be satisfied with one precise, colorless statement of that which is likely to be ignored. The student must be cudgeled and enticed. As a proof of the correctness of this position, this course has been tried with unexpected success upon the Cadets of the United States Military Academy. The very items which have been repeated and highly colored have proven themselves to the instructors to be the very ones which have more easily driven the points home.

Grateful acknowledgment is made by the author to Lieut. Colonel L. H. Holt, Professor of English and History, who made the book possible; to Captain G. Hoisington, Infantry, for drawing a plate; to Captains J. R. N. Weaver, Infantry, R. H. Lee, Coast Artillery Corps, L. E. Moreton, Coast Artillery Corps, C. C. Benson, Cavalry, and J. H. Grant, 24th Infantry, for their valuable criticism; and to Major A. W. Chilton, Infantry, for the revision of the book in order to make it conform to the practical work passed over—by his disinterested correction the whole becomes more valuable as a text.

W. A. G.

CHAPTER I
OUR APPROACH TO A CRITICAL MATTER

All military language should be of the utmost brevity and clarity. Death and disaster are the direct results of ambiguity. Throughout all history mistaken directions and information have been the ruin of whole campaigns. Careless wording, like careless shooting, is not only ineffective but often suicidal.

The object of these few lessons is to give practice in putting the language of military communication into form. It is hoped that by means of certain technical and rhetorical principles the student may gain proficiency in expressing his thoughts as he intends them and as military efficiency demands them.

Our Field Service Regulations state that “clear and decisive orders are the logical result of definite and sure decisions.” But this statement does not imply that if a person arrives at a definite and sure decision, he gains clear and decisive phraseology without effort on his part. General Wagner, a pioneer among American military authorities, divides into completely separate operations the act of deciding upon a definite plan of action and that of drafting or framing orders which will carry that decision into effect. One is purely military and has to do with dispositions of forces; the other is mainly rhetorical and has to do with manipulations of language. Many a military man has decided certainly in his own mind what he is going to do in order to carry out his mission, only to be faced immediately with a harder task. He must set that definite idea in the mind of some one else. “How,” he sighs, “shall I put this so as to let my Captains, Smith and Jones, know exactly what I want?” He seats himself on a warm rock under the blazing sun and chews his pencil. What he at first writes down, he finds, is full of loop-holes and is not expressive of what he means. He tries again, crosses out words here and there, adds others, and changes his sentences until the whole is undecipherable. In disgust he tears up the paper and tries again. After fifteen minutes of such effort he holds in his hand a few paragraphs of which he is not proud, but which will have to do. There has been no want, perhaps, of clear tactical reasoning on his part, but rather a distinct lack of ability to drive common English home. His case, we find, is not exceptional. One has only to listen to the discussions of military beginners (or of some, alas, who are not military beginners) to hear this statement confirmed. How often after having given careful or even brilliant estimates of a situation will a man burst out with, “I know what I mean right here, but don’t quite know how to say it!” All the way along there has been a decided blank space between decision in the mind and embodiment in language.

Whether slang, profanity, or colloquialisms have cut into our ordinary speech to such an extent as to keep us at a loss for the apt word, or whether we have grown careless or slovenly in our habits of expression, is a matter with which we are not concerned here. We do know that we are continually hampered by our inability to state absolutely our meaning. This lack of skill in composition which besets us, we must overcome in our profession, for the sake of the lives dependent upon our words. Napoleon sitting at his desk scribbling off orders and messages as fast as his nimble fingers can travel, his secretaries standing about him grasping each finished piece from under his pen and sending it off immediately by courier without revision or correction, is a dazzling picture for the military leader to contemplate. In his writing, a commander capable of carrying out single-handed all the phases and minor items of the mightiest of campaigns could, no doubt, be precise and accurate habitually. He was a genius. Yet Napoleon had had long years of practice in putting his will into words; for, we are told, he began to compose orders and to think tactically and strategically at a time of life when most of us have not even chosen our careers. If, then, we can try our hand at transcribing our ideas in as formative a period as possible in our military careers, we, too, may attain a proficiency that will become a second nature with us. At least, we may put behind us a great part of this uninteresting but indispensable work of learning to control our language, before we confront the more serious task of straightening out tactical and strategical difficulties in the presence of the enemy.

Incidentally, while we are on our way in our progress in expression, we may pick up much valuable military information. In our practice with tactical language we must make use of certain facts which have been found by experience appropriate to certain happenings connected with officers’ and soldiers’ duties. We shall be in constant touch with the workings of patrols, advance guards, outposts, and forces in battle. Like so many reporters we shall be present at maneuvers putting our notes into graphic and specific form.

Now, however, we are going to rivet our attention to the main issue—the mastery of clear and brief military communication. It has been mentioned that such ready skill often prevents loss of battles and human life. It prevents another loss which we have not taken up separately—the loss of time. The officer who sat chewing his pencil on the warm rock threw away from ten to twelve minutes which might have been used profitably upon the accomplishment of his mission—an amount of time which might have given the very advantage needed to gain a complete victory over the enemy. If he had had a skilful working knowledge of his own Mother Tongue, the delay would not have occurred. His effectiveness was lost for want of power of expression. To illustrate further, consider for a moment an army post going about its routine duties of drill, guard, and police. Into the Adjutant’s office walks an individual who announces himself to be Major Smart of the Inspector General’s Department. On being introduced to the Colonel, he identifies himself, and gives immediate orders that the Colonel shall have his regiment on the parade ground ready for field service in fifteen minutes. When the troops are formed, the Inspector rides up to the Colonel, hands him a typewritten tactical problem, and asks for a solution of it as soon as possible. The Inspector then takes out his watch and observes. If the Colonel consumes more than a reasonable number of minutes in writing his orders, or if he shows a hesitancy in so doing, or if he must seek aid from his Adjutant, it is surprising to note how soon after Major Smart’s departure from the post, the Colonel receives a letter from Washington apprising him of his shortcomings, and recommending, for his own good, a speedy remedy. Because of the inroads upon efficiency, the War Department, like any good business firm, cannot brook vacillation or unwarranted loss of time.

We must, then, adopt some method or procedure by which we will effectually beat down the causes of this loss of time, battles, and life. After analysing past proficiencies and deficiencies in military communication, we spy out from all the roads to the goal open to us, two which appear to be shorter than the rest. If we guide ourselves along these we shall come upon our object in the quickest way. Since the first leads into the second, they are given here in order. We should strive: (1) To learn to find quickly expressions which will cover information and decisions that are trying to struggle into language; and (2) To plant that information and decision into the recipient’s understanding exactly as it was rooted in our minds.

The first process is that of defining thoughts exactly and briefly.

The second process is that of making those thoughts so unmistakable that the most stupid cannot misunderstand and the most captious cannot misinterpret.

After we have done the first, we should look over our work and be certain that we have done the second.

The first has to do with the kind of situation that faced the man who knew what he “wanted to say but couldn’t express himself.” Some authorities argue that there is no difference between clear thinking and clear expression. They give no place to the “mute inglorious Milton.” They would not concede that the man groping for language had formed a definite plan in his mind, because that plan was not definite enough to be expressed. “If he has not thought in language,” they say, “he has not really thought.” Their opponents claim that a man thinks in pictures, and that he conceives his ideas as a painter imagines objects. In his mind are the outlines and colors of what he considers. There is truth in both views of the matter. But it is likely from what we know of the training of the military man that his mind works more by visualizing the troops and by conjuring up the scene than by gaining his conceptions through words. His forces are moving along roads, occupying trenches, or surging into conflict. His map is not a plane surface with names upon it, but a vision of highways, waving corps, and rolling hills. He is looking at these things without mentally describing them. For the purpose of this course, we shall take the view that there are occasions where we deduce certain results, but are unable, because of unfamiliarity with framing good sentences or because of a small vocabulary, to communicate those results or deductions in accordance with common usage.

The second road can be illustrated by comparison with the first. There is a wide difference, although at first there does not appear to be, between merely stating a thing clearly and making it unmistakable. The first is but a negative approach to complete certainty of expression, but the second must be a positive one. The distinction is one more or less of attitude of mind, and although heretofore it has been overlooked as an entity in English text books and military regulations, it assuredly illustrates itself in two types of men who actually exist. The man who is content with merely making himself clear takes the attitude of, “O, well, they will get what I meant because any other interpretation is absurd or incorrect.” The man who is not content unless he makes himself unmistakable says, “I won’t let any of them have the slightest excuse for any other interpretation; when I get through there will be but one interpretation and that will be mine.” The first one in sending a message to his commanding officer locates himself by putting in his heading, “Irrigation ditch 500 yards east of southeast corner of Catholic Church.” He notices another irrigation ditch fifty yards further to the east, but says to himself, “If my commanding officer measures the distance on the map he will know which one I mean.” The second man, upon looking about him and discovering the other ditch, does not accept the chance of letting his commanding officer confuse the two ditches by a possible difference of maps or measuring instruments. He investigates further. By moving a few yards to the top of a hillock he notices that the farther ditch is entirely a dirt construction whereas the one he occupies is a concrete one. He confirms this intelligence by looking at his map which shows the ditches to be as he has made them out. He, therefore, heads his message, “Concrete irrigation ditch 500 yards east of southeast corner of Catholic Church.” This is a case where an added word has made the meaning more proof against error. There are similar cases where a word taken away, or the change of a phrase, clause, or sentence, will make the recipient of the communication more sure of the true state of affairs.

To sum up as far as we have gone, we see that our object is to put military communication into proper form; that the failure to make our expression of the utmost brevity and clarity causes loss of efficiency, battles, and life; that a condition of inability to express ourselves exists widely; that by starting as early as we can to practice clear and brief form within the bounds of rhetorical and military rules (which, after all, are nothing more than those of common sense), we shall overcome this deficiency; and that for ourselves we are going to direct our course along two highways, viz.:

(1) To learn to find quickly expressions which will cover information and decisions that are trying to struggle into language; and

(2) To plant that information or decision in the recipient’s understanding exactly as it was rooted in our minds.

We have, so far, rehearsed the general attitude we must adopt toward conquering indefinite and lengthy expression. Because this weakness is so natural to us, we cannot afford to trifle with it if we wish to become a factor in battle. Positive decisions and information must be given in a positive way. Since no other kind of decision or information is countenanced in the military service, we must search for specific means of having our language stand sturdily by itself.

It must not choke our idea or our will, however little. Our decisiveness must reach our farthest superior or subordinate; and words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs are going to be our only representatives. They alone will stand for us. Every pencil mark on that paper will be a part of the photograph of our intelligence. Our phraseology will be ourselves. We shall be judged by it, and rightly so, at a time when we shall have no chance to offer an amendment, an excuse, or an I-didn’t-mean-quite-that.

Guide-posts must mark our highways, if we are in earnest about our destination of brevity and clarity. In the specific hints which follow as to what to do and what not to do, there will be no attempt to point the way to literary effects which have entertainment for their sole object. Our effort must be to find a practical and speedy outlet for military information and decision through the most unmistakable channels. But since we must be terse and clear even to entertain, most of the rules of English will apply here. So we must not betray surprise or anguish when we are beset on our way by some old enemies with whom we have wrestled in rhetorics. In meeting them again we shall become the stronger because of the exercise on new and professional ground. The effort to put facts into forceful and compact form now, will create for us such a habit of brevity and clarity that later on we shall have room in our natural language for only such ideas and decisions as are brief and clear.