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
It is the doctrine of the armed establishment of the United States
that when American men lead a personal life which is based on high
moral standards, and when their aim is equally high as to physical
fitness and toughness, under training conditions they will mature
those qualities which are most likely to produce inspired leading and
stout following within the forces.
There is nothing panty-waist about this doctrine. It was not
pronounced to gratify the clergy or to reassure parents that their
sons would be in good hands, even though these things, too, are
important.
The doctrine came of the experience of the Nation in war, and of what
the services learned by measuring their own men. But it happened,
also, that the facts were consistent with a common sense reckoning of
the case.
Let's figure it out. To be temperate in all things, to be continent,
and to refrain from loose living of any sort, are acts of the will.
They require self-denial, and a foregoing of that which may be more
attractive, in favor of the thing which should be done. Granted that
there are a few individuals who are so thin-blooded that they never
feel tempted to digress morally, men in the majority are not like
that. What they renounce in the name of self-discipline, at the cost
of a considerable inner stress, they endeavour to compensate by their
gains in personal character. Making that grade isn't easy; but no one
who is anyone has yet said that it isn't worthwhile. In the armed
services there is an old saying that an officer without character is
more useless than a ship with no bottom.
In the summing up, the strength of will which enables a man to lead a
clean life is no different than the strength of purpose which fits him
to follow a hard line of duty. There are exceptions to every rule.
Many a lovable rounder has proved himself to be a first-class fighting
man. But even though he had an unconquerable weakness for drink and
women, his resolution had to become steeled along some other line or
he would have been no good when the pay-off came.
Putting aside for the moment the question of the vices, and regarding
only the gain to moral power which comes of bodily exercise and
physical conditioning, it should be self-evident that the process
which builds the muscle must also train and alert the mind. How could
it be otherwise? Every physical act must have as its origin a mental
impulse, conscious or unconscious. Thus in training a man to master
his muscles we also help him to master his brain. He comes out of
physical training not only better conditioned to move but better
prepared to think about how and why he is moving, which is true
mobility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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