This is the familiar story. It was repeated by United States forces in World War II during the Normandy hedgerow fighting and the invasions of the Central Pacific atolls. Troops had to learn the hard way how to hit, and how to survive, in moving through jungle or across the mountains and desert. When that happened, the only disciplinary residue which mattered was obedience to orders. The movements they had learned by rote were of less value than the spiritual bond between one man and another. The most valuable lesson was that of mutual support. And unless this lesson was supported by confidence in the judgment of those in authority, it is to be doubted that they were helped at all. Finally, that confidence is the _sine qua non_ of all useful military power. The moral strength of an organic unity comes from the faith in ranks that they are being wisely directed and from faith up top that orders will be obeyed. When forces are tempered by this spirit, there is no limit to their enterprise. They become invincible. Lacking it, however, any military body, even though it has been compelled to toe the mark in training, will deteriorate into a rabble under conditions of extraordinary stress in the field, as McDowell's Army did at Bull Run in the American Civil War, and as Hitler's Armies did in 1945 after the Rhine had been crossed at Remagen. In its essentials, discipline is not measured according to how a man keeps step in a drill yard, or whether he salutes at just the right angle. The test is how well and willingly he responds to his superiors in all _vital_ matters, and finally, whether he stands or runs when his life is at stake. History makes this clear. There are countless examples of successful military forces which had almost no discipline when measured by the usual yardsticks, yet had a high battle morale productive of the kind of discipline which beats the enemy in battle. The French at Valmy, the Boers in the South African War, and even the men of Capt. John Parker, responding to his order on the Lexington Common, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here," instance that men who lack training and have not been regimented still may express themselves as a cohesive force on the field of fire, provided that they are well led. If we will accept the basic premise that discipline, even within the military establishment of the United States, is not a ritual or a form, but is simply that course of conduct which is most likely to lead to the efficient performance of an assigned responsibility, it will be seen that morale does not come of discipline, but discipline of morale.