_There is no rule pertaining to the moral unifying of military forces under the pressures of the battlefield which is not equally good in the training which conditions troops for this eventuality._ For the group to feel a great spiritual solidarity, and for its members to be bound together by mutual confidence and the satisfactions of a rewarding comradeship, is the foundation of great enterprise. But it is not more than that. Unaccompanied by a strengthening of the military virtues and a rise in the martial spirit, a friendly unity will not of itself point men directly toward the main object in training, nor enable them to dispose themselves efficiently toward each other on entering battle. It does not make the military man less an agent of peace and more a militarist that he relishes his membership within a fighting establishment and thinks those thoughts which would best put his arms to efficient use. The military establishment neither declares nor makes war; these are acts by the nation. But it is the duty of the military establishment primarily to succor the nation from any great jeopardy. CHAPTER THIRTEEN ENVIRONMENT The saying of the Old Sergeant that, "It takes a war to knock the hell out of the Regular Army," applies as broadly to war's effects upon the general peacetime establishment. In the rapid expansion of the armed service which comes of a national emergency, nothing seems to remain the same. Old units fill up, and change their character. By the time they have sent out three or four cadres of commissioned and enlisted leaders to form the base for entirely new organizations, little remains of the moral foundation of the parent unit except an honored name. Promotion is rapid and moves are frequent among the higher commanders. No sooner does a man feel fairly settled under a new commander, and confident that he will get along, than he looks up to see someone else filling the space. Installations grow like mushrooms. Schools multiply at a phenomenal rate. The best qualified men are taken away so that they will become better qualified, either by taking an officers' course or through specialist training. Their places are taken by men who may have an equal native ability, but haven't yet mastered the tricks of the trade. This piles high the load of work on those who command. The intake and the pipelines in all services fill with men of a quite different fiber and outlook than those which commonly pass through the peacetime training establishment.