The Armed Forces Officer: Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2United States. Department of Defense
History
The Armed Forces Officer: Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2
United States. Department of Defense
United States -- Armed Forces -- Officers' handbooks
But there is also a far wider vista than that which is to be viewed
only within the services themselves, and its horizons are almost
infinite. The American way in warfare utilizes everything within the
national system which may be applied to a military purpose toward the
increase of training and fighting efficiency. Much of our potential
strength lies in our industrial structure, our progress in science,
our inventiveness and our educational resources. Toward the end that
all of these assets will be given maximum use, and every good idea
which can be converted to a military purpose will be in readiness to
serve the nation when war comes, there must be a continuing meeting of
minds between military leadership and the leaders and experts in these
various fields during peace.
That union cannot be perfected, however, unless there is a sufficient
number of men on both sides of the table who can think halfway into
the field of the man opposite. Just as the civilian expert in
electronics, airplane manufacture or motion picture production needs
to know more about the military establishment's problem and
requirements if he is to do his part, the service officer with whom he
is dealing needs to be informed on industry's resources, possibilities
and limitations if he is to enable the civilian side to do its part
well. The same for science. The same for education, and all other
backers of the fighting force.
An enlightened Englishman, D. W. Brogan, in a book written during
World War II, "The American Character," gave us this thought: "The
American officer must think in terms of material resources, existing
but not organized in peacetime and taking much time and thought and
experiment by trial and error to make available in wartime. He finds
that his best peacetime plans are inadequate for one basic reason:
that any plan which in peacetime really tried to draw adequately on
American resources would cause its author to be written off as a
madman; and in wartime, it would prove to have been inadequate,
pessimistic, not allowing enough for the practically limitless
resources of the American people--limitless once the American people
get ready to let them be used. And only war can get them ready for
that. The American officer can draw then, but not before, on an
experience in economic improvization and in technical adaptation which
no other country can equal."
This is true to the last syllable, and it means in essence that unless
the American officer can think of the whole nation as his workshop,
and along with his other duties, will apply himself as a student,
seeking to understand more and more about the richness and the
adaptability of our tremendous resources, neither he nor the country
will be relatively ready when war comes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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