hich enable an officer to win the
confidence and working loyalty of his men will serve just as well when
he is dealing with higher authority.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DISCIPLINE

Though many of the aspects of discipline can be discussed more
appropriately in other sections of this book, an officer must
understand its particular nature within American military forces if he
is to win from his men obedience coupled with activity at will.

It frequently happens that the root meaning of a word more nearly
explains the whole context of ideas with which it is legitimately
associated than the public's mistaken use of the same word. Coming
from the Latin, "to discipline" means "to teach." Insofar as the
military establishment of the United States is concerned, nothing need
be added to that definition. Its discipline is that standard of
personal deportment, work requirement, courtesy, appearance and
ethical conduct which, inculcated in men, will enable them singly or
collectively to perform their mission with an optimum efficiency.

Military discipline, in this respect, is no different than the
discipline of the university, a baseball league or a labor union. It
makes specific requirements of the individual; so do they. It has a
system of punishments; so do they. These things are but incidental to
the end result. Their main object is to preserve the interests and
further the opportunity of the cooperative majority. But the essential
difference between discipline in the military establishment and in any
other free institution is this, that if the man objects, he still does
not have the privilege of quitting tomorrow, and if he resists or
becomes indifferent and is not corrected, his bad example will be felt
to the far end of the line.

Though the failure to stop looting by our forces during World War II,
and the redeployment riots which followed it, are both unpleasant
memories, they underscored a lesson already affirmed by every American
experience at arms. The most contagious of all moral diseases is
insubordination, and it has no more respect for rank than the plague.
When higher authority winks at its existence among the rank and file,
it will contaminate upward as well as down. Once a man condones
remissness, his own belief in discipline begins to wither. The officer
who tolerates slackness in the dress of his men soon ceases to tend
his own appearance, and if he is not called to account, his sloppy
habits will short