ea is that military organization is therefore
most perfect when it operates in the same way as the civil society.

Earlier in this book it has been suggested that these ideas need to be
questioned on two broad grounds: Do not both of them run counter to
the facts of encharged responsibility, and to human nature itself?

To emphasize it once again, the military officer is not alone an
administrator: _he is a magistrate_. There are special powers given
him by the President. It is within these powers that he will sit in
judgment on his men and that he may punish them when they have been
grievously derelict. This dual role makes his function radically
different from anything encountered in civil life--to say nothing of
the singleness of purpose which a fighting service is supposed to move
forward.

Moreover, the military officer is dealing with men who are submitted
to him in a binding relationship which by its nature is not only more
compelling but more intimate than anything elsewhere in society. As
much as the parent in the home, and far more than the teacher in the
school or the executive in business, he is directed to center his
effort primarily on the building of good character in other
individuals.

One need only compare a few points of advantage and disadvantage to
see why a better balanced sense of justice and fair play is required
of the military officer than of his brother in civil life, and why the
aim would be far too low if the fighting services did not shoot for
higher standards of personnel direction than are common in the
management of American business. Here are the points:

If any subordinate in the civilian vineyard feels that he is
getting a bad deal from his boss, and has become the object of
unfair discrimination, it is his royal American privilege to quit
on the spot, be he a policeman, a government factotum or a hod
carrier. He can then maintain himself by carrying his skill into a
new shop. But an enlisted member of the armed establishment cannot
quit summarily, and finally, if his commander is just wrong-headed
and arbitrary, it can be made almost impossible for him to
transfer out. However bad his fortune, he's stuck with it.

Nepotism is so general in our business and political life that the
people who suffer from its effect accept it more or less as the
working of nature; the results are therefore less destructive of
efficiency than the