he ball back
and forth in friendly conversation, there is nothing they enjoy more
than reminiscing about experiences on the battlefield. Other than
inveterate surgical patients, no one can outdo them in talking about
their operations.

It isn't lengthy advice which is needed on this subject, since a man
commissioned is considered to have graduated from at least the
kindergarten of good manners. What counts is simply caring about it,
not to be ingratiating to other people, but for the sake of one's own
dignity and self-respect.

None of the oracles on winning friends and influencing people have
said it in those few words, and if they had, there would have been no
books to sell.

CHAPTER NINE

LEADERS AND LEADERSHIP

In that gallery of Great Americans whose names are conspicuously
identified with the prospering of the national arms in peace and war,
there are almost as many types as there are men.

There were a certain few qualities that they had to possess in common
or their names would never have become known beyond the county line.

But these were inner qualities, often deep buried, rather than outward
marks of greatness which men recognized immediately upon beholding
them.

Some almost missed the roll call, either because in early life their
weaknesses were more apparent than their strengths, or because of an
outward seeming of insignificance which at first fooled their
contemporaries.

In the minority are the few who seemed marked for greatness almost
from the cradle, and were acclaimed for leadership while still of
tender years.

Winfield Scott, a Brigadier in the War of 1812 when Brigadiers were
few, and Chief of Staff when the Civil War began, is a unique figure
in the national history.

George Washington, Adjutant of the State of Virginia at 21, is one
other military infant prodigy who never later belied his early fame.

The majority in the gallery are not like these. No two of them are
strikingly alike in mien and manner. Their personalities are as
different, for most part, as their names. Their characters also ran
the range of the spectrum, or nearly, if we are talking of moral
habit, rather than of conscientious performance of military duty. Some
drank their whiskey neat and frequently; others loathed it and took a
harsh line with any subordinate who used it.

One of the greatest generals in American history, celebrated for his
fighting hardly more than for his tippling, would walk f