es
counsel men on their material problems and thereby assist the officer
who is over troops. But so doing, he is committing a trespass unless
he acts with the commander's knowledge and consent. The commander is
the foster father of the men in his organization. When he renounces
this role, he neglects a trust.

That neglect cuts the fighting efficiency of the unit at its root.
Finally, counseling, like all else in military life, has a combat
purpose. Other things being equal, the tactical unity of men working
together in combat will be in ratio to their knowledge and sympathetic
understanding of each other. Whatever the cause, aloofness on the part
of the officer can only produce a further withdrawal on the part of
the man. Finally, the cost comes high. In battle, and out of it, the
failure to act and to communicate is more often due to timidity in the
individual than to fear of physical danger.

Described in cold type, the counseling process probably appears a
little sticky. Actually, it is nothing of the sort. For it has been
going on ever since man became civilized. It is a force in all
organized human relationships, beginning in infanthood and lasting
through old age. Because of the nature of a military group, and
particularly because of the deriving of united strength from
well-being in each of the component parts, there is much more need to
regularize it and to qualify all men in a knowledge of those things
which will enable them to assist a fellow in need of help. But in the
military society, far more than in civil life, confidence is a two-way
street. It would be almost impossible to express the collective
gratitude of tens of thousands of lieutenants and ensigns who in times
past have learned to rely on the friendly counsel of a veteran
sergeant or petty officer, and have usually gotten it straight from
the shoulder, _but with respect_. The breaking-in of most young
officers, and the acclimating of them to their role in a command
system, is due, in large measure, to support from this source. Nor are
senior commanders reluctant to receive moral comfort of this same kind
in periods of crisis.

When the planes of the First Tokyo Raid under Col. James H.
Doolittle, crashed among the mountains and along the sea-coast of
Eastern China, after one of the most valiant strokes in our military
annals, their commander was among the few who had the added misfortune
of coming to earth within the Japanese lines. By fate's