, but danger was his element.
When he saw other men recoil at the thing which bothered him not at
all, he realized that he was the big man, though he only stood 5 feet
3 inches in issue socks.

To know men, it is not necessary to wet-nurse them, and no officer can
make a sorrier mistake than to take the overly nice, worrying attitude
toward them. This, after all, is simply the rule of the well-bred man,
rather than an item peculiar to the code of the military officer. But
it is a little less becoming in a service officer than in anyone else,
because, when a man puts on fighting clothes in the name of his
country, it is an insult to treat him as if he were a juvenile.

In any situation where men need to know one another better, someone
has to break the ice. Where does the main responsibility lie within a
military unit? True enough, the junior has to salute first, and in
some services is supposed to say, "Good morning!" first, though
beating a man to the draw with a greeting is one way to win him.

However, the main point is this: unless an officer has himself been an
enlisted man, it is almost impossible for him to know how formidable,
and even forbidding, rank at first seems to the eyes of the man down
under, even though he would be loath to say so.

Many recruits have such a mistaken hearsay impression of the United
States military system, that it is for them a cause for astonishment
that any officer enjoys free discussion with them. They feel at first
that there is a barrier there which only the officer is entitled to
cross; it takes them a little while to learn better.

But in the continuing relationship, it is the habit of the average
well-disciplined enlisted man to remain reticent, and talk only on
official matters, unless the officer takes the lead in such way as to
invite general conversation. For that matter, the burden is the same
anywhere in the service in relations between a senior officer and his
subordinates, and the former must take the lead if he expects to
really know his men.

Many newly joined officers believe, altogether mistakenly, that there
is some strange taboo against talking to men except in line of duty,
and that if caught at it, it will be considered _infra dig_. There is
always the hope that they will remain around long enough to learn
better.

CHAPTER TWENTY

WRITING AND SPEAKING

Other things being equal, a superior rating will invariably be given
to the officer who has