The Armed Forces Officer - United States. Department of Defense

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because it cuts no bricks, bales no hay and produces nothing which can be vended in the market places, it is not unusual to hear some military men concur in this strange notion. That acquiescence is wholly unbecoming.

      The physician is not slurred as belonging to a nonproductive profession because he contributes only to the care and healing of the body, and through these things to the general well-being of society. Respect for formal education, organized religion and all of the enterprises built up around the dissemination of ideas is not the less because the resultant benefit to society is not always tangible and saleable. Hence to say that that without which society could not endure in its present form is "uneconomic" is to make the word itself altogether meaningless.

      In that inner power of courage and conviction which stems from the spiritual integrity of the individual, lies the strength of democracy. As to their ability to produce toward these ends, the military services can stand on the record. When shortly after World War II, a census was taken among the returned men, 60 percent said that they had been morally strengthened by their military service in the American uniform. About 30 percent had no opinion or felt that military life had not changed them one way or the other. An insignificant minority considered themselves damaged. This is an amazing testimony in light of the fact that only a small fraction of American youth is schooled to believe that any spiritual good can come of military service. As to what it signifies, those who take a wholly materialistic view of the objects of the Republic are entitled to call the military establishment "uneconomic." The services will continue to hold with the idea that strong nationhood comes not of the making of gadgets but of the building of character.

      Men beget goodwill in other men by giving it. They develop courage in their following mainly as a reflection of the courage which they show in their own action. These two qualities of mind and heart are of the essence of sound officership. One is of little avail without the other, and either helps to sustain the other. As to which is the stronger force in its impact upon the masses of men, no truth is more certain than the words once written by William James: "Evident though the shortcomings of a man may be, if he is ready to give up his life for a cause, we forgive him everything. However inferior he may be to ourselves in other respects, if we cling to life while he throws it away like a flower, we bow to his superiority."

      Theodore Roosevelt once said that if he had a son who refrained from any worthwhile action because of the fear of hurt to himself, he would disown him. Soon after his return to civilian life, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke of the worthwhileness of "living dangerously." An officer of the United States armed forces can not go far wrong if he holds with these ideas. It is not the suitable profession for those who believe only in digging-in and nursing a soft snap until death comes at a ripe old age. Who risks nothing gains nothing.

      Nor should there be any room in it for professional smugness, small jealousies, and undue concern about privilege.

      The regular recognizes as his peer and comrade the officer from any of the civilian components. That he is a professional does not give him an especial eminence, but simply a greater measure of responsibility for the success of the total establishment. Moreover, he can not afford to be patronizing, without risking self-embarrassment, such is the vast experience which many reservists have had on the active field of war.

      Toward services other than his own, any officer is expected to have both a comradely feeling and an imaginative interest. Any Army officer is a better man for having studied the works of Admiral Mahan and familiarized himself with the modern Navy from first-hand experience. Those who lead sea-going forces can enlarge their own capacities by knowing more, rather than less, about the nature of the air and ground establishments. The submariner can always learn something useful to his own work by mingling with airmen; the airman becomes a better officer as he grows in qualified knowledge of ground and sea fighting.

      But the fact remains that the services are not alike, that no wit of man can make them alike, and that the retention by each of its separate character, customs and confidence is essential to the conserving of our national military power. Unification has not altered this basic proposition. The first requirement of a unified establishment is moral soundness in each of the integral parts, without which there can be no soundness at all. And on the question of fundamental loyalty, the officer who loves every other service just as much as his own will have just as much active virtue as the man who loves other women as much as his own wife.

       FORMING MILITARY IDEALS

       Table of Contents

      Any stranger making a survey of what Americans are and how they get that way would probably see it as a paradox that within the armed establishment the inculcation of ideals is considered the most vital of all teaching, while in our gentler and less rigid institutions, there is steadily less emphasis on this subject.

      He would be entitled to the explanation that it is not so done because this has always been the way of Armies, Navies, and other fighting forces, or because it is universal in the military establishments of the twentieth century, but because nothing else would better suffice the American military system under present conditions.

      There are two main reasons why.

      The first is that we are an altogether unregimented people, with a strong belief in the virtues of rugged individualism and in the right of the average man to go along about as he pleases, so long as he does not do actual injury to society. Voluntary group cooperation rather than absolute group loyalty, developing from a strong spiritual bond, is the basic technic of Americans in their average rounds. It is enough to satisfy the social, political and economic needs of a democracy, but in its military parts, it would be fatally weak. There would be no possibility of achieving an all-compelling unity under conditions of utmost pressure if no man felt any higher call to action than what was put upon him by purely material considerations.

      Military ideals are therefore, as related to this purpose, mainly an instrument of national survival. But not altogether so, since in the measure that they influence the personal life and conduct of millions of men who move in and out of the services, they have a regenerative effect upon the spiritual fiber of the Nation as a whole.

      There is the second and equally important reason that, whereas wars have sometimes been fought for ideal causes, as witness the American Revolution and Civil War, war itself is never ideal, and the character of our people is such as to insist that from our side, its brutalities be minimized. The barbarian who kills for killing's sake and who scorns the laws of war at any point is repugnant to the instincts of our people, under whatever flag he fights. If we did not have some men of this type among us, our penitentiaries would not be filled. The ravages which they might commit when all of the barriers are down on the battlefield can be prevented only when forces as a whole believe that armed power, while not ideal in itself, must be made to serve ideal ends.

      To speak of ethics in the same breath with war may seem like sheer cant and hypocrisy. But in the possibility that those who best understand the use and nature of armed power may excel all others in stimulating that higher morality which may some day restrain war lies a main chance for the future. The Armed Services of the United States do not simply do lip service to such institutions as United Nations. They encourage their people to take a deep personal interest in every legitimate activity aimed to bulwark world peace. But while doing this, they keep their powder dry.

      Military ideals are not different than the ideals which make any man sound in himself, and in his relation to others. They are called military ideals only because the proving ground is a little more rugged in the service than elsewhere. But they are all founded in hard military experience; they did not find expression because some Admiral got it in his head one day to set an unattainable goal for his men, or because some General wished to turn a pious face toward the public, professing that his men were aspiring to greater virtue than anything the public knew.

      The military way is a long, hard road, and it makes extraordinary requirements of every individual. In war, particularly, it puts stresses upon men such as they have not known elsewhere, and

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