Home > Work > The Captains (Brotherhood of War, #2)
1 " Gentlemen,” he said, “I am a simple soldier. When I was a cadet at Norwich, I was told, and I believed, and my subsequent career has proven true, that the essence of command is to make sure the troops have confidence in what they are doing. Troops must have faith in their officers Officers build and maintain that faith in a very simple manner: They never lie to their troops; they never ask them to do something they cannot do themselves, or are unwilling to do themselves; and they never partake of creature comforts until the last private in the rear rank has that creature comfort. If you’ll keep that in mind, I’m sure that we’ll get along. "
― W.E.B. Griffin , The Captains (Brotherhood of War, #2)
2 " As far as he was concerned, there were only two kinds of soldiers. There were those who lost their heads at the sound of hostile fire, and those who didn’t. The warriors and the chair-borne. "
3 " The first duty of an officer—whether a lieutenant or a captain or the Commander in Chief—is to the enlisted men. That was a basic principle of command. He could not justify not calling up the best qualified officers simply because they had already done their duty. They were needed again. They could save some lives. It was a dirty goddamned trick on them, but that’s the way it was going to have to be. "
4 " The first duty of an officer—whether a lieutenant or a captain or the Commander in Chief—is to the enlisted men. That was a basic principle of command. He could not justify not calling up "
5 " HOURS 2 MAY 1951, "
