The Making of an Officer
Excerpts from Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 2005.

Marine officer training:

The curriculum seemed ridiculous at first. My liberal arts education had valued discussion, debate, and nuanced interpretations of complex ideas. But combat, we were told, there's rarely time for discussion and debate. Complex ideas must be made simple, or they'll remain ideas and never be put in action. The leadership traits were bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm, initiative, integrity, judgment, justice, knowledge, loyalty, tact, and unselfishness.

I was learning that the staff valued enthusiasm and loyalty above all else. They wanted [marine officer] candidates with heart who could work as a team. A struggling candidate could redeem himself by trying harder, wringing performance from effort.

The Marine Corps adheres to a crawl-walk-run philosophy, so we spent much of our time in the classroom before going out to the woods to practice what we'd learned.

We learned about warfare's dynamism...When confronting an opposing will, we fight people who are also fighting us. They will learn as we learn. Their tactics will evolve as ours do.The key consideration in any tactical move is "to turn the map around." What are your vulnerabilities? Where will he hit you, and what can you do to defeat him?

We learned that the Corps relies on a mission-type orders: "Tell me what to do, not how to do it."

Meeting his first platoon:

Sipping my coffee, I asked Marine to tell me about the platoon. I expected a continuation of his earlier sarcasm, but he turned serious. Instead of talking about the Marines' performance, he focused on their personalities, families, and interests.

"You gotta care about 'em for real, sir...Almost anybody can do this job. You want to make the Marines care enough to do it well."

Infantry tactic training:

Many of my buddies in 1/1's other companies complained that their commanders kept a thumb on them. They shunned boldness for fear of making an attention-grabbing mistake. The prevailing culture of 1/1, at least among the officers and senior NCOs, was careerist: laugh at the colonel's jokes, don't get anyone hurt, and stay under the radar.

Not Captain Whitmer.

"If safety were paramount," Whitmer declared, "we'd stay in the barracks and play pickup basketball. Good training is paramount." Whitmer's idea of good training reminded me of something I'd read about the Roman legions - their exercises were bloodless battles so that their battles were bloody exercises.

"You guys were probably cursing me for briefing changes on the fly." We nodded in confession. "But I did it because you have to learn to operate that way. Any one of you," he whispered with emphasis, pointing to each of us, "is one bullet away from commanding this company. You need to learn it here, not in Iran or Somalia or wherever."

At war:

Legal authority is worn on the collar - the gold and silver rank insignia that garner salutes and the title"sir." It doesn't win fire fights. Moral authority is the legitimacy granted to a leader who knows his job and cares about his men. In combat, I learned to rely on moral authority much more than on legal authority.

Strong combat leadership is never by committee. Platoon commanders must command, and command in battle isn't based on consensus. It's based on consent. Any leader wields only as much authority and influence as is conferred by the consent of those he leads. The Marines allowed me to be their commander, and they could revoke their permission at any time.

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