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-assurance 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 gratitude 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 cockiness, 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 assumption 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 classification 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 rebuttal—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-classify 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, classify." 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 buttoned 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 document 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.