As to discipline, until recent years, military forces tended to stress the pattern rather than the ideal. The elder Moltke, one of the great masters of the military art, taught his troops that it was of supreme importance that they form accurately in training, since the perfection of their formations would determine their efficiency in battle. Yet in the Franco-Prussian War, these formations proved utterly unsuited to the heavily wooded terrain of the theater, and new ones had to be devised on the spur of the moment.
This is the familiar story. It was repeated by United States forces in World War II during the Normandy hedgerow fighting and the invasions of the Central Pacific atolls. Troops had to learn the hard way how to hit, and how to survive, in moving through jungle or across the mountains and desert. When that happened, the only disciplinary residue which mattered was obedience to orders. The movements they had learned by rote were of less value than the spiritual bond between one man and another. The most valuable lesson was that of mutual support. And unless this lesson was supported by confidence in the judgment of those in authority, it is to be doubted that they were helped at all.
Finally, that confidence is the sine qua non of all useful military power. The moral strength of an organic unity comes from the faith in ranks that they are being wisely directed and from faith up top that orders will be obeyed. When forces are tempered by this spirit, there is no limit to their enterprise. They become invincible. Lacking it, however, any military body, even though it has been compelled to toe the mark in training, will deteriorate into a rabble under conditions of extraordinary stress in the field, as McDowell's Army did at Bull Run in the American Civil War, and as Hitler's Armies did in 1945 after the Rhine had been crossed at Remagen.
In its essentials, discipline is not measured according to how a man keeps step in a drill yard, or whether he salutes at just the right angle. The test is how well and willingly he responds to his superiors in all vital matters, and finally, whether he stands or runs when his life is at stake. History makes this clear. There are countless examples of successful military forces which had almost no discipline when measured by the usual yardsticks, yet had a high battle morale productive of the kind of discipline which beats the enemy in battle. The French at Valmy, the Boers in the South African War, and even the men of Capt. John Parker, responding to his order on the Lexington Common, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here," instance that men who lack training and have not been regimented still may express themselves as a cohesive force on the field of fire, provided that they are well led.
If we will accept the basic premise that discipline, even within the military establishment of the United States, is not a ritual or a form, but is simply that course of conduct which is most likely to lead to the efficient performance of an assigned responsibility, it will be seen that morale does not come of discipline, but discipline of morale.
True enough, our recruits are given a discipline almost from the moment that they take the oath. Their first lesson is the necessity for obedience. They are required immediately to conform to a new pattern of conduct. They respond to disciplinary treatment even before they learn to think as a group and before the attitude of the group has any influence upon them. Discipline bears down before morale can lift up. Momentarily, they become timid before they have felt any pain. These first reactions help condition the man to his new environment. They are in part demoralizing, but on the upswing he begins to realize that half the fun in life comes of seeing what one can do in a new situation. The foundation of his morale is laid when he begins to think of himself as a member of the fighting establishment, rather than as a civilian. Thereafter all that is done to nourish his military spirit and to arouse his thirst for professional knowledge helps to build his moral power.
But follow the man a little longer. The time quickly comes when he knows his way around in the service. His earlier fears and hesitations are largely gone. He acquires strength and wisdom from the group. He becomes able to judge his own situation against an attainable standard within the service. He is critically conscious of the merits of his superiors from what he has himself experienced and what others tell him. He knows what is boondoggling and what is not.
From that point on, discipline has little part in alerting the man or in furthering the building of his moral power. That which moves him mainly is the knowledge that he is a personal success, and that he belongs to an efficient unit which is in capable hands. Certain of the outer signs of discipline, such as the cadence of the march or snap in the execution of the manual, he may subconsciously reenforce his impression of these things. But if he feels either that he is an outsider or that the club isn't worth joining, no amount of spit and polish will alter his opinion.
He is able to recognize a right and reasonable discipline as such, even though it causes him personal inconvenience, because he has acquired a sense of military values. But if it is either unduly harsh or unnecessarily lax, he likewise knows it and wears it as a hairshirt, to the undoing of his morale. Though the man, like the group, can be hurt by being pushed beyond sensible limits, his spirit will suffer even more sorely if no real test is put upon his abilities and moral powers. The greater his intelligence, the stronger will be his resentment. That is a law of nature. The enlightened mind has always the greatest measure of self-discipline but it also has a higher sense of what constitutes justice, fairplay and a reasonable requirement in the performance of duty. If denied these things, he will come to hold his chief, his job, and himself in contempt. The greater part of man's satisfactions comes of activity and only a very small remnant comes of passive enjoyment. Forgetting this rather obvious fact in human nature, social reformers aim at securing more leisure, rather than at making work itself more satisfactory. But it need not be forgotten in the military service.
Even to those who best understand the reasons for the regimenting of military forces, a discipline wrongfully applied is seen only as indiscipline. Invariably it will be countered in its own terms. No average rank-and-file will become insubordinate as quickly, or react as violently, as a group of senior noncommissioned officers, brought together in a body, and then mishandled by officers who are ignorant of the customs of the service and the limits of their own authority. Not only are they conscious of their rights, but they have greater respect for the state of decency and order which is the mark of a proper military establishment than for the insignia of rank. It is this firm feeling of the fitness of things, and his unbounded allegiance to an authority when it is based on character which makes the NCO and the petty officer the backbone of discipline within the United States fighting establishment. Sergeant Evans of "Command Decision" was an archtype of the best ball carriers among them. In a sense, they remain independent workmen, rather than a tool of authority, until the hour comes when they fall in completely with someone their own nature tells them is good. In the past, we have not always made the wisest use of this latent strength. The normal desire of the veteran who has won his stripes by hard service is to support his officers and reduce the friction down below. Whatever is done to lessen his dignity and prestige damages morale and creates new stresses in the relations between the officer corps and the ranks. When he is rebuffed, either because those above him are indifferent to his pride or are unaware that he is their chief advocate among the men, the military machinery loses its cushion and becomes subject to increasing shock. Said a newly arrived lieutenant to an old sergeant of the 12th Cavalry: "You've been here a long time, haven't you?" "Yes sir," replied the sergeant. "The troop commanders, they come and they go, but it don't hurt the troop."