as U. S.
Grant, W. T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, John J. Pershing, James G.
Harbord, Henry T. Allen, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Jr.,
H. H. Arnold, Douglas MacArthur, William F. Halsey, W. B. Smith,
Joseph W. Stilwell, Holland M. Smith, and Robert L. Eichelberger among
many others.

Of them all, it can be said without exception that they acquired their
skill at self-expression by sustained practice which was part of a
self-imposed training in the interests of furthering their military
efficiency. No one of them was a born writer. There is no such thing.
Nor did any one of them owe his abilities as a writer to any other
person. Writers are self-made. But it is a reasonable speculation that
history might never have heard of the greater number of these men had
they not worked sedulously to become proficient with the pen as well
as with the sword. Granting that they had other sound military
qualities in the beginning, an acquired ability to express themselves
lucidly and with force became a touchstone to preferment. The same
thing holds true of their celebrated military contemporaries almost
without exception. Even those who had no public reputation for
authorship, and would have been ill at ease if called upon to speak to
an average audience, knew how to use the language in presenting their
thoughts to their staffs and their troops, whether the occasion called
for a succinct operational order, a doctrinal exposition or an
inspirational message on the eve of battle.

Wherever one looks, the same precept may be noted. It was not
coincidence merely, but related cause and effect, that Ferdinand Foch
was one of the ablest military writers of the twentieth century before
he won immortality on the field of war, that the elder von Moltke was
as skilled with ink as with powder, and that we still marvel at the
picture of the great von Steuben dictating drill manuals far into the
night so that there would be greater perfection in his formations on
the following day. The command of language was one of the main sources
of their power over the multitude.

As it was with these commanders, so it is with leadership at every
level: _Men who can command words to serve their thoughts and feelings
are well on their way to commanding men to serve their purposes._

All senior commanders respect the junior who has a facility for
thinking an idea through and then expressing it comprehensively in
clear, unvarnished phrases. Moreover,