1
" Strive to do small things well. Be a doer and a self-starter—aggressiveness and initiative are two most admired qualities in a leader—but you must also put your feet up and think. Strive for self-improvement through constant self-evaluation. Never be satisfied. Ask of any project, How can it be done better? Don’t overinspect or oversupervise. Allow your leaders to make mistakes in training, so they can profit from the errors and not make them in combat. Keep the troops informed; telling them “what, how, and why” builds their confidence. The harder the training, the more troops will brag. Enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage—four of the most important aspects of leadership. Showmanship—a vital technique of leadership. The ability to speak and write well—two essential tools of leadership. There is a salient difference between profanity and obscenity; while a leader employs profanity (tempered with discretion), he never uses obscenities. Have consideration for others. Yelling detracts from your dignity; take men aside to counsel them. Understand and use judgment; know when to stop fighting for something you believe is right. Discuss and argue your point of view until a decision is made, and then support the decision wholeheartedly. Stay ahead of your boss. "
― David H. Hackworth , About Face: Odyssey Of An American Warrior
7
" Infantrymen were fighters, not writers. In one way, we prided ourselves on it; we didn’t have time for such “pussy” stuff. But the fact was that infantrymen in Korea came, as a rule, from the bottom rung of the social and economic ladder. The squads were mainly made up of poor whites, blacks, and yellows—a dispensable rainbow—uneducated, with nothing to keep us a step ahead of the point of a bayonet. And if a doughfoot got killed, his parents generally didn’t have the education to write and ask why. They’d silently, stoically wear their loss like a sad badge of honor. In Korea, a heroic, dead comrade-in-arms; at home, a gold star in a cracked window in a little house on the wrong side of the tracks. "
― David H. Hackworth , About Face: Odyssey Of An American Warrior
9
" I began to think about all the generals’ proclamation concerning this war: that we’d be home before Christmas, that the Chinese would not intervene, that we’d hold here or hold there. All of it was bullshit, and I started to wonder how they could possibly make so many dumb statements when each, invariably, fell apart when put to the test. Then I thought, Well, maybe they just don’t know—we never saw a general on the front. We seldom saw a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, or a major either. And at squad level, we only on the rarest occasion saw a captain. So how could the brass know how defeated its army was if they weren’t there to see an exhausted guy lie down on the road and just give up? How could they know how cold and ill equipped we were if they weren’t there to see blue, gloveless hands stick to the frozen metal of weapons? How could they know how steep and rugged the terrain was if they never climbed a hill? "
― David H. Hackworth , About Face: Odyssey Of An American Warrior
15
" gave as many classes personally as I could, not only for the benefit of the troops, but for myself. I found that the teacher learns as much as, if not more than, his students, and it also kept my own skills sharpened to a fine edge. It’s easy to lose touch with the basics, and you become less inclined to get them back once you’ve moved up the ladder; I’d seen too many high-ranking officers who’d stopped trying, having decided, I guessed, that they were “above all that. "
― David H. Hackworth , About Face: Odyssey Of An American Warrior
