The kid said: "Why, Colonel, you've got this all wrong. You have no idea how this looks to the United States. Don't you realize that right now they're getting ready to make you a general? Why I'll make you a bet they give you the Congressional Medal." Doolittle thanked him. He thought it was a nice thing for the boy to say. That kind of loyalty was worth having in a bad hour. The boy started to walk away; he could tell that Doolittle didn't believe a word of it. Then suddenly he turned and came on back. "Colonel," he said, "I'd like to make a deal with you. Suppose I'm right about it and you're wrong. So they give you a star and the Congressional Medal. If that happens, will you agree to take me with you wherever you go?" Doolittle made him a solemn promise. Fresh courage came to him out of the boy's tremendous earnestness. And of course the boy was right, and the contract was kept, and all things went well until, by a savage irony, Sgt. Leonard was killed in the last German raid against Doolittle's headquarters in Europe shortly before the war ended. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX USING REWARD AND PUNISHMENT One of the illusions having greatest currency among our people is that any green member of the fighting establishment is merely an American civilian in a uniform, and that therefore, his spirit is nourished to the extent that accommodations and usages of the service most nearly duplicate what he has known elsewhere. This belief is especially prevalent during wartime when every mother's son puts on a new suit; it is natural to think that everything in the service will better suit the boy if it smells like home. The corollary of this rather quaint idea is that military organization is therefore most perfect when it operates in the same way as the civil society. Earlier in this book it has been suggested that these ideas need to be questioned on two broad grounds: Do not both of them run counter to the facts of encharged responsibility, and to human nature itself? To emphasize it once again, the military officer is not alone an administrator: _he is a magistrate_. There are special powers given him by the President. It is within these powers that he will sit in judgment on his men and that he may punish them when they have been grievously derelict. This dual role makes his function radically different from anything encountered in civil life--to say nothing of the singleness of purpose which a fighting service is supposed to move forward. Moreover, the military officer is dealing with men who are submitted to him in a binding relationship which by its nature is not only more compelling but more intimate than anything elsewhere in society. As much as the parent in the home, and far more than the teacher in the school or the executive in business, he is directed to center his effort primarily on the building of good character in other individuals.