military geography, national military policy and logistics.

The advancement of an original idea which has led to a general
improvement in any one service.

Any and all of these are extra strings to one's bow. They are the
means to greater satisfaction during peacetime employment and the
source of great personal advantage during the shooting season. But
they should not be mistaken for the main thing. _To excell in command,
and to be recognized as deserving of it, is the rightful ambition of
every service officer and his main hold on the probabilities of
getting wider recognition._

This holds true of the man who is so patently a specialist that it
would be wrong to waste him in a command responsibility. If he
understands the art of command, and his personality and moral
fortitude fit him for the leading of men, he will be in better
adjustment with his circumstances anywhere in the services, and will
be given greater respect by his superiors. This rule is so absolute in
its workings as to warrant saying that _every man who wears the
insignia of an officer in the armed forces of the United States should
aspire to the same bearing and the same inner confidence as to his
power to meet other men and move them in the direction he desires that
is to be marked in a superior company commander_.

The natural leader is the real specialist of the armed services. He is
as prodigious, and as much a man apart, as the wizard who has mastered
supersonic speeds. Here we speak not alone of the ability of an
officer fully to control and develop his element under training
conditions, but to take the same element into battle and conserve the
total of its powers with complete efficiency. The man who resolves to
develop within himself the prerequisite qualities which serve such an
object is moved by the worthiest of all ambitions, for he has
submitted himself to the most complex task within human reach.

The self-assurance that one has promise in the field of command is in
part a derivative of growth and in part a matter of instinct. But to
the normal young officer, it comes as something of a delightful
surprise to learn that when he speaks other men will listen, when he
reasons they will become convinced, and when he gives an order his
authority is accepted. Far from being a bad quality, this
ingenuousness is wholesome because it reflects warm appreciation of
what has been given him. It does not lessen confidence if a commander