"The trouble with you, too, Willy, is that you don't
understand the big picture." General Eisenhower, probably more than
any other American commander, had the art of winning with his humor.
He would have qualified under Sydney Smith's definition: "The meaning
of an extraordinary man is that he is eight men in one man; that he
has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had
no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of
human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were
irretrievably ruined."

There is hardly a soldier, marine, or bluejacket who has been long in
battle but can tell some tale of an experience under fire when the
pressure became almost unbearable, and then was suddenly relieved
because somebody made a wisecrack or pulled something that was good
for a laugh. At Bastogne the American headquarters was being shelled
out of its position in the Belgian Barracks. The Commanding General
called in his Chief Signal Officer and asked when it would be
convenient to move. Said Lt. Col. Sid Davis, "Right now, while I've
got one line left and you can still give the order." When the garrison
was surrounded, and higher headquarters requested a description of the
situation, the young G-3 of the operation, Col. H. W. O. Kinnard,
radioed: "Think of a doughnut: we're the hole."

Who hasn't heard of the top kick who got his men forward by yelling:
"Come on you ----! Do you want to live forever?" Both the Army and the
Marine Corps claim him for their own, and it is possible that he was
twins.

If the American fighting man did not have an instinctive feeling for
the moral value of that kind of thing, the story would be long since
buried, for it is as ancient as the other tale which ends: "That was
no lady; that was my wife."

CHAPTER TEN

MAINSPRINGS OF LEADERSHIP

To what has been said, just a few things should be added so that the
problem of generating greater powers of leadership within the officer
corps may be seen in its true light.

The counselor says: "Be forthright! Be articulate! Be confident! Be
positive! Possess a commanding appearance!" The young man replies:
"All very good, so far as it goes. I will, if I can. But tell me, how
do I get that way?" He sees rightly enough the main point, that these
things are but derivatives of other inner qualities which must be
possessed, if the leader is to travel the decisive mile between
wavering capacity and