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 pass 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 passed 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 competition 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 fortitude fit him for the leading of men, he will be in better adjustment with his circumstances 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.