t the quality of a junior leader and there is no point in wasting
space by sending him to any school or course out of which it would be
expected that duties as an instructor would devolve upon him.

However, there is one word of extreme caution on this point. For as
long as 6 months after entering service, some men are under abnormal
constraint because they are in a new element, and feel a little
frightened inside. Whether this is the case is to be judged best by
getting full information on the man. If the record shows that he had
led his class in college, managed an athletic team, headed a debating
team in high school, been the main wheel in a boy's club or a Scout
troop, or led any kind of group, this is to be taken as a sign that
the potential is there and that he is a sleeper. The most common error
made in the services is that we are prone to underscore that a man was
a lieutenant in a cadet company while taking no note of the file who
had greater prestige in other activities because of his natural
qualities as a leader.

These are only a few average samples of personnel handling, and of
elementary reasoning. As Mother Goose might say, if the list had been
longer, the case still wouldn't have been stronger. Far more
profitably, we can dig a little deeper into the subject of principles.

In two senses, every decision as to the placing of men in the armed
service is a moral decision, and therein it differs from average
civilian responsibility. What is best for the man has always to be
measured against the ultimate security and fighting objects of the
establishment.

For example, it is dead wrong, even in time of peace, to commit
tactical leadership to the hands of the man whose moral force clearly
falls short of what is required on the field of war, no matter how
congenial he may be. And it is just as wrong to let a blabbermouth
work his way into security channels, even though the hour is such that
he can do no immediate harm.

What importance should be attached to a man's estimate of his own
capabilities? It is always pertinent, but it is by no means decisive.
This is so for two reasons, the first being that the majority of men
tend to over-sell themselves on the thing they like to do, and the
second, that very few men know their own dimensions. Almost
consciously, men resist the thing that they do not know, because of
premonitory fears of failure. When the Armored Force School was first
organized in 1941, a pr