a better understanding of _esprit_ and its part in
the building of military forces, it is necessary to look beyond the
organization and consider the man.

The life of any socially upright individual is organized around only a
few basic loyalties and the degree of satisfaction which he derives
from existence can usually be measured in terms of his service to
them. He is loyal first to himself, for failing that, he fails in
loyalty to all else. If he cannot acquit himself ably for his own
sake, he cannot do honor to anything less personal. Along with loyalty
to self come loyalty to our beliefs, loyalty to family, loyalty to
country, loyalty to friends, and loyalty to humanity in general.

Stated as a factual and not as an ideal matter, the interesting and
important thing that happens to a man when he enters military service
is that, the moment he takes the oath, loyalty to the arms he bears
ranks first on the list, above all other loyalties. To get ahead, to
serve himself well, he must persevere in ways that are most useful to
the organization. If the circumstances of his family are reduced
because of this new loyalty, his means of compensating them is to
strive for such honor as may come to him through service to the United
States. In his life, service to country is no longer a beautiful
abstraction; it is the sternly concrete and unremitting obligation of
service to the regiment, the group or the ship's company. He parts
with old friends and finds new ones.

In this radical reorientation of the individual life and the arbitrary
imposition of a commanding loyalty is to be found the key to the
esprit of any military organization. Too long esprit has been regarded
as something bequeathed to the unit by the dead hand of tradition.
There is nothing moribund about it. It is a dynamic and vital
substance conducted to the living by the living. We can banish from
our minds the idea that esprit is what the regiment, the ship or the
company gives the man because of some spark which its past deeds and
the legends thereof have lighted in him. Esprit, at all times, is what
the unit gives the man, in terms of spiritual force translated into
constructive good. Considering what the unit has taken from him
initially, its obligation is great indeed.

To see this clearly, we need to look once again at what happens to the
individual when he puts on the uniform. The basis of his life changes
in broad and fundamental ways. His legal stat