As a further safeguard against making himself inaccessible, the officer needs to make an occasional check on the procedures which have been established by his immediate subordinates. At all levels of command it is the pet task of those "nearest the throne" to think up new ways to keep all hands from "bothering the old man." However positive an order to the contrary, they will not infrequently contrive to circumvent it, mistakenly believing that by this act they save him from himself. Many a compassionate commander leads an unwontedly lonely life because of the peculiar solicitude of his staff in this matter and his own failure to discover what is happening to him. In this way the best of intentions may be thwarted. There is no sure cure for the evil but personal reconnaissance. It is never a waste of time for the commander, or for any officer, to talk to his people about their personal problems. More times than not, the problem will seem small to him, but so long as it looms large to the man, it cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Ridicule, sarcasm and the brush-off are equally inexcusable in any situation where one individual takes another into his confidence on any matter which does not involve bad faith on the part of the petitioner. Even then, if the man imparts that which shows that his own conduct has been reprehensible or that he would enlist the support of his superior in some unworthy act, it is better to hear him through and then skin him, than to treat what he says in the offhand manner. An officer will grow in the esteem of his men only as he treats their affairs with respect. The policy of patience and goodwill pays off tenfold because what happens to one man is soon known to the others. In this particular there has been a radical change within the services during the current century, simply because of broader understanding of human relationships. In the Old Army, the man could get through to his commander only if he could satisfy the First Sergeant as to the nature of his business; this was a roadblock for the man who either was afraid of the First Sergeant, or was loath to let the latter know about his affairs. Custom dies hard and this one has not been entirely uprooted. But the distance we have traveled toward humanizing all command principles is best reflected by the words of General Eisenhower in "Command in Europe": "Hundreds of broken-hearted fathers, mothers, and sweethearts wrote me personal letters begging for some hope that a loved one might still be alive, or for additional detail as to the manner of his death. Every one of these I answered."