Although that is good advice in any man's league, there is just a little more reason why the military officer should adopt a system of accounting whereby he can keep his record straight, his affairs solvent and his situation mobile than if he had remained in civil life.
He rarely, if ever, becomes permanently fixed in one location or remains tied to one group of individuals who know his credit, his ability, his past accomplishments and his general reputation. In the nature of his work, these things have to be reestablished from point to point, and if he personally does not take pains to conserve them, he can be certain only that no one else ever will.
On the whole, the attitude of the services toward the private affairs and nonduty conduct of their officers can be best set forth by once again employing Chesterfield's phrases: "If you have the knowledge, the honor, and probity which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection will amply reward you; but if you have them not, my aversion and indignation will rise in the same proportion."
Reassignment to a distant station is of course a day-to-day possibility in the life of any military officer. Far from this being a general hardship, it is because the pattern of work and environment changes frequently, and the opportunity to build new friendships is almost endless, that the best men are attracted to the services. To vegetate in one spot is killing to the spirit of the individual who is truly fitted to play a lead part in bold enterprises, and for that reason there is something very unseemly and unmilitary about the officer who resists movement.
On the other hand, a move order is like a club over the head to the officer who hasn't kept his own deck clean, has made no clear accounting of himself and is out of funds and harassed by his creditors.
Concerning the evils of running into debt, there is hardly need for a sermon to any American male who has brains enough to memorize his general orders. As Mr. Micawber put it to David Copperfield, "The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of days goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short, you are forever floored." The over-extension of credit is a not unknown American failing. It is now the nigh universal custom to overload the home with every kind of gadget, usually bought on time, and nearly all intended to provide the householder with every possible excuse for resisting human toil or for declining to use any personal ingenuity in making life interesting for his family. It is all good enough for those who must have it, but it is well for an officer to remember that the greater the accumulation, the less his chance of accommodating his personal establishment to the requirements of the service. All moves are costly, even though the government pays most of the freight.
For these and many other reasons, the habit of systematic saving is an essential form of career insurance. The officer who will not deprive himself of a few luxuries to build up a financial reserve is as reckless of his professional future as the one who in battle commits his manpower reserve to front-line action without first weighing his situation.
In the old days, keeping up with the Joneses was almost a part of service tradition. If the colonel's lady owned a bob-tailed nag, the major's wife could be satisfied with nothing less than a bay. And so on and on. Things are no longer that way. They have become much more sensible.
There is one other kind of credit—the professional credit which an officer is entitled to keep with his own establishment. Junior officers are entitled to know that which their superiors are often too forgetful to tell them—that if they have made some especially distinct and worthy contribution to the service, it belongs in the permanent record. If, for example, an officer has written part of a manual, or sat on a major board or committee or provided the idea which has resulted in an improvement of materiel, the fact should be noted in the 201 file, or its equivalent. Such things are not done automatically, as many an officer has learned too late and to his sorrow. But any officer is within propriety in asking this acknowledgment from his responsible superior.
The legal assistance office in an officer's immediate organization will usually suffice his needs in the drawing of all papers essential to his personal housekeeping.