tain high rank and high
command before it shall have been discovered that he not only does not
possess the necessary qualifications for the same but is absolutely
deficient in good sense--good judgment, decisive action, or even the
ordinary military instincts to maintain the high standard of efficiency
and success pertaining thereto--and upon which all depends-- In a
garrison of 10 troops of Cavalry and three Companies of
Infantry--Mackenzie had not only carefully gone over the entire roster
from which to select two officers upon whose experience and good
judgment he could absolutely depend for the performance of a duty in
which he not only wanted but expected and demanded decisive results, but
he had revolved all the possibilities and probabilities of dismal
failure had he selected any other than Lawton and myself.

[A] Theodore Roosevelt in his "Letters to His Children"--pp.
87-89, referring to his son "Ted" entering West Point, says: "It
would be a great misfortune for you to start into the Army or
Navy as a career and find that _you had mistaken your desires_
and had gone in without fully weighing the matter. You ought not
to enter _unless you feel genuinely drawn to the life as a
life-work_. If so, go in, but not otherwise." * * "Mr. Loeb
(Secretary to President Roosevelt) says he wished to enter the
army _because he did not know what to do_, could not foresee
whether he would succeed or fail in life, and felt that the army
_would give him a living and a career_. Now, if this is at
bottom of your feeling I should advise you not to go in. I
should say _yes_ to _some boys, but not to you_." If all fathers
had given as good advice to their sons who have been aspirants
to that kind of military glory which would give them "_a living
and a career_", we would have been saved the mortification of
"canning" some of our graduates of West Point during this world
war, who having acquired the "_career_" were not worth the
powder with which to blow them out of their O. D. (Olive Drab)
uniforms.

It is hoped that the writer will neither be charged with petty conceit,
undue egotism nor personal vanity in making these simple declarations of
facts the absolute truth of which never was, nor ever could be gainsayed
by any officer of that period in the Fourth Cavalry.

In this entire campaign after these deserters, success was dependent,
not upon any st