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There is a common saying in the services, and elsewhere, that greater privileges grow out of larger responsibilities, and that the latter justifies the former. This is part truth and part fable.

In military organization, as in industry, business, and political life, the more important a man's position, the more lavish he is likely to be in his office appointments and living arrangements, and the greater the care that is apt to be taken in freeing him of trifling annoyances.

But that is only partly because of the need for him to conserve his time and energy. When men are successful, they like the good things of life. Why deny it? Not one individual in 10,000 would aspire to power and authority if it meant living like a hermit.

There is no way that the military establishment can denature human nature, and change this determining condition. Nor is there any reason why it should wish to do so. Its men, like all others, develop a sense of well-being from those advantages, many of them minor, which attend, and build prestige, both in private and in official life. The incentive system by which our country has prospered has always recognized that privilege is a reward for effort and enterprise. The American people have always accepted that reasonable, harmless privileges should attend merit. It is by enhancing the prestige of leaders and by making their positions attractive that the Armed Forces get better officers and men.

One of the keenest-minded Americans of our time has said: "Responsibilities are what devolve upon a person, and privileges are what he ought not to have, but takes." In a perfect universe, that would be a perfect truth. But men being as they are, prideful and desirous of any mark of recognition, privileges are the natural accompaniment of rank and station, and when not wilfully misused, may contribute to the general welfare. At all levels, men will aspire more, and their ambition will be firmer, if getting ahead will mean for them an increase in the visible tokens of deference from the majority, rather than simply a boost in the paycheck. To complain about this quality in human nature is as futile as regretting that the sun goes down.

However, since it is out of the abuse of privilege that much of the friction between authority and the rank-and-file arises, the subject can't be dropped at that point. What puts most of the grit into the machinery isn't that privileges exist, but that they are exercised too often by persons who are not motivated by a passionate sense of duty. For it is an almost inviolable rule of human behavior that the man who is concerned most of all with his responsibilities will be fretted least about the matter of his privileges, and that his exercise of any rightful privilege will not be resented by his subordinates, because they are conscious of his merit.

We can take two officers. Lieutenant "A" enters the service with one main question in mind: "Where does my duty lie?" So long as he remains on that beam, he will never injure the morale of the service by using such privileges as are rightfully his as an officer. But in the mind of Lieutenant "B" the other idea is uppermost: "What kudos do I get out of my position?" Unless that man changes his ways, he will be a troublemaker while he remains in the service, a headache to his fellow officers and a despoiler of those who are under him.

In recent years, we have learned a lot about American manpower. We have seen enough of the raw material under testing conditions to know that, with the exception of the occasional malcontent who was irreparably spoiled before he left home, American young men when brought into military organization do not resent rank, and are amenable to authority. Indeed, they expect that higher authority will have certain advantages not common to the rank-and-file, because that is normal in our society in all of its workday relationships.

But they do not like to have their noses rubbed in it by officers who, having no real moral claim on authority, try to exhibit it by pushing other people around. And when that happens, our men get their backs up. And they wouldn't be worth a hoot in hades if they didn't.

Even as privilege attends rank and station, it is confirmed by custom, and modified by time and environment. What was all right yesterday may be all wrong tomorrow, and what is proper in one set of circumstances may be wholly wrong in another.

Take one example. In Washington's Continental Army, a first lieutenant was court-martialed and jailed because he demeaned himself by doing manual labor with a working detail of his men. Yet in that same season, Major General von Steuben, then trainer and inspector of all the forces, created a great scandal and almost terminated his usefulness by trying to rank a relatively junior officer out of his quarters. Today both of these usages seem out of joint. Any officer has the privilege of working with his men, if he needs exercise, wishes to see for himself how the thing is done, or feels that an extra hand is needed on the job at a critical moment. As for any notion that his quarters are his permanent castle no matter who comes, he had best not make an issue of the point!

But to emphasize it once again, duty is the great regulator of the proper exercise of one's rights. Here we speak of duty as it was meant by Giuseppe Mazzini, Italy's great patriot of the early Nineteenth Century, when he said: "Every mission constitutes a pledge of duty. Every man is bound to consecrate his every effort to its fulfillment. He will derive his rule of action from the profound conviction of that duty." For finally the key lies in this, that out of high regard for duty comes as a natural flow that sense of proportion which we call common sense.

Adjustment and dignity in any situation are impossible when minds are bent only on a code of conduct rather than on action which is consistent with the far objectives. In the early stages of World War II, it was not unusual to see a junior officer walking on the public sidewalk, hands free, and looking important, while his wife tagged along, trying to keep step, though laden like a pack mule. This was because someone had told him that it was not in keeping with an officer's dignity to be seen heavily burdened. In the nature of things, anyone so lacking in gallantry as that would stimulate very little respect for the officer corps.

Actually, in these times, there are relatively few special privileges which attend officership, and though the war brought perhaps a few excesses, the post war trend has been in the other direction.

Normally, an officer is not expected to buck a chow line, or any other queue in line of duty, if he is sensibly in a rush. The presumption is that his time is more valuable to the service than that of an enlisted man. Normally, an officer is not expected to pitch a tent or spend his energy on any hand labor incidental to housekeeping. Normally, he has greater freedom of action and is less bound by minor restrictions than the ranks.

But the accent in these things is decidedly on the word normally. If a mess line were in an area under general fire, so that added waiting meant extra danger, then only a poltroon would insist on being fed first. And while an officer wouldn't be expected to pitch a tent, he would dig his own foxhole, unless he was well up in grade. At that, there were a few high commanders in World War II who made it a point of pride to do their own digging from first to last. Greater "freedom of action," too, can go out the window, for conditions arise, particularly in war, when freedom of action can not be permitted anyone except the very top authority. When a general restriction is clamped down, the officer caught violating it is in more serious jeopardy than the enlisted offender.

As the entire body of this book is directed toward the consideration of the fundamental responsibilities in officership, the special comments in this chapter will relate mainly to propositions not stated elsewhere.

Though it has been said before, even so, it can be said again: It is a paramount and overriding responsibility of every officer to take care of his men before caring for himself. From the frequent and gross violation of this principle by badly informed or meanly selfish individuals comes more embarrassment to officer-man relationships than perhaps from all other causes put together. It is a cardinal principle! Yet many junior officers do not seem to understand that steadfast fidelity to it is required, not lip service. "And of this," as Admiral Mahan would say, "comes much evil." The loyalty of men simply cannot be commanded when they become embittered by selfish action.

Then how deeply does this rule cut? In line of duty, it applies right down to the hilt! When a command is worn, bruised, and hungry, officers attend to their men's creature comforts and make sure that all is going well, before looking to their own needs. If an officer is on a tour with an enlisted man, he takes care that the man is accommodated as to food, shelter, medical treatment or other prime needs, before satisfying his own wants; if that means that the last meal or the last bed is gone, his duty is to get along the hard way. If a command is so located that recreational facilities are extremely limited, and there are not enough to go around, the welfare of the ranks takes priority over the interests of their commissioned leaders; in fact, it would be more correct to say that the welfare of men is the prior interest of the officer.

These few concrete illustrations show, in general, what is expected. Once the main idea is grasped, the way of its total application becomes clear. Officers do not go around playing pigtail to enlisted men. But they build loyalty by serving the men first, when all concerned are following a general line of duty together.

It is an incumbent responsibility on all officers to maintain the dignity of the uniform and prevent anyone from sullying it. This means not only the dress of person, but the uniform wherever it is worn publicly by any man of the United States forces. Where the offense is committed by a member of some other service and the disgrace to the uniform is obvious, it is the duty of the officer to intervene, or to bring about intervention, rather than to walk out on the situation. This calls for judgment, tact, nerve. The offense must be real, and not simply an offense against one's private sensibilities. But indecencies, exhibitionism and bawdiness of such a nature that if done on a reservation would warrant trial of the individual for unbecoming conduct will justify intervention by the officer under public circumstances.

Similarly, any officer has a responsibility to any enlisted man who is in personal distress, with no other means of ready help. Suppose they just happen to meet in a strange community. The enlisted man's credentials are shown to be bona fide. But he has had his pocket picked, or has lost his wallet, or has just missed the train that would have carried him back from his leave on time, and he doesn't know what to do. For any officer to brush-off a forthright request for aid or advice under such circumstances is an unofficerly act. Likewise, if one suspects, just from appearances, that the man is in trouble and somewhat beyond his depths, it will be found that, far from resenting a kindly inquiry, he will mark it to the credit of the whole fighting system.

To say that an officer owes a fellow officer no less consideration than this is to state the obvious. Officers meeting in transit usually get into conversation; it is a habit that adds much to one's professional education. When an officer is getting into a strange town, or arriving at a new post, anything done by a fellow officer to help him get oriented, or to make things friendly and easy for him, furthers the comity of the corps. Between officers of differing services these small courtesies are particularly appreciated. Nor does the matter end there. Within Unit A, the officers have the responsibility of continuing support to the officers of Unit C, Unit B, and so on. Though they are in a sense competing, each trying to build higher than the other, they must never forget that the basic technique of organization is cooperation. What "A" knows that has helped his unit, or whatever he can do to assist "B" and "C" without materially depriving himself, it becomes his official and moral obligation to transmit. An officer can never understand his own command problem very well unless he knows, at least a little, of how things are going in other units. And the statement can be reversed. He cannot judge the problems of other people unless he tries passionately to understand his own people.

There are many other minor articles within what is sometimes called the "unwritten code" which help to regulate life in the services, and to sweeten it.

But what counts most is not the knowing of the rule but the sharing of the spirit which gives it meaning and makes its proper administration possible.