Chapter 27

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.

One need only compare a few points of advantage and disadvantage to see why a better balanced sense of justice and fair play is required of the military officer than of his brother in civil life, and why the aim would be far too low if the fighting services did not shoot for higher standards of personnel direction than are common in the management of American business. Here are the points:

If any subordinate in the civilian vineyard feels that he is getting a bad deal from his boss, and has become the object of unfair discrimination, it is his royal American privilege to quit on the spot, be he a policeman, a government factotum or a hod carrier. He can then maintain himself by carrying his skill into a new shop. But an enlisted member of the armed establishment cannot quit summarily, and finally, if his commander is just wrong-headed and arbitrary, it can be made almost impossible for him to transfer out. However bad his fortune, he's stuck with it.

Nepotism is so general in our business and political life that the people who suffer from its effect accept it more or less as the working of nature; the results are therefore less destructive of efficiency than they might be otherwise. It is common to see the boss's nephew or his son get a good spot in the office and then rise like a rocket, even though he is a third-rater. And it is not less common to see a straw boss in a factory favor the man whom he thinks might grease the wheels for him on the outside. But in the armed establishment, favoritism on any grounds, and particularly on such treacherous grounds as these, will destroy the foundations of work and of control.

The armed establishment has its own body of law. Therein, too, it differs from any civilian autonomy except the state itself. The code is intended to enable a uniform standard of treatment to all individuals in the regulating of all interior affairs. The code is not rigid; its provisions are not absolute. It specifies the general nature of offenses against society, and special offenses against the good of the service. But, except for the more serious offenses, particularly those which by their nature also violate the civil code, it does not flatly prescribe trial and punishment. Military law, in this respect, has more latitude, and is more congenial, than civil law covering minor offenders. Rarely arbitrary in its workings, it premises the use of corrective good judgment at all times. It regards force as an instrument only to be used for conserving the general good of the establishment. The essential power behind the force is something spiritual--the will and conscience of the great majority, expressing itself through the action of one or several of their number. Its major object is not punishment of the wrong-doer but protection of the interests of the dutiful. This view of military law is four-square with the basic principle of all action within the armed services--_that in all cases the best policy is one which depends for its workings on the sense of duty in men toward each other, and thereby strengthens that sense through its operations._

Put in these terms, the attitude of the service toward the problem of correction as a means of promoting the welfare of the general establishment obviously reposes a tremendous burst in the justice and goodwill of the average officer. It would be useless to blink the fact. But there is this to be said unalterably in favor of the military system's way of handling things: If the organization of the whole human family into an orderly unit is ever to be made possible, it will be done only because many men, of all ages and working at many different levels, develop this faculty for passing critical, impartial judgment on the conduct and deserts of those whom they lead, instead of regarding it as a special kind of wisdom, given only to the few anointed. Nor is that all. Not only the knowledge but the sense of duty in men is imperfect. In every society are men who will not obey the law of their own accord. Unless the authority which receives and interprets the law will also impose it, by force if necessary, the reign of law soon ceases. Whether an ordered society is to exist thus depends upon whether there are citizens enough, fixed with a sense of duty, to obey it and to enforce it.

At first glance, the responsibility seems extraordinarily heavy and difficult. But with broadening experience, it becomes almost second nature to an officer quickly to set a course by which to judge individual men in relation to the affairs of organization, provided that he has steered all along in the light of a few elementary principles.

Concerning reward, and equally with respect to punishments, no more pertinent words could be said than those uttered long ago by Thomas Carlyle: "What a reflection it is that we cannot bestow on an unworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our patronage or whatever resource is ours--without withdrawing it, and all that will grow out of it, from one worthy, to whom it of right belongs! We cannot, I say; impossible; it is the eternal law of things."

He said a number of important things in this one brief paragraph. There is first the thought that when any reward, such as a promotion, a commendation or a particularly choice assignment is given other than to the man who deserves it on sheer merit, some other man is robbed and the ties of organization are weakened.

Next, there is this proposition: if, in the dispensing of punishment, undue leniency is extended to an individual who has already proved that he merits no special consideration, in the next round a bum rap will be given some lesser offender who is morally deserving of a real chance. The Italians have an epigram: "The first time a dog bites a man, it's the dog's fault; the second time, it's the man's fault."

According to Carlyle, these things have the strength of a natural law. Nor is it necessary to take his word for it. Any wise and experienced military administrator will say approximately the same thing and will tell of some of the bad examples he has met along his way.... The commander who was afraid to punish anybody and by his indecision punished everybody.... The lieutenant who had such a bad conscience about his own weak handling of a bad case of indiscipline that he threw the book at the next offender and thereby spoiled a good man and gained the ill will of the company.... The old timer who smarted under excessive punishment for a trivial offense, broke under it, got into worse trouble, and became a felon.... The officer who promoted his pets instead of his good men and at last found that there were no good men left.... The skipper who condoned a small case of insolence until it swelled into a mutiny.... The fool who handled every case alike, as if he were an animal trainer instead of a builder of human character ... and so on, ad infinitum. It is a long and sorry list, but the overwhelming majority of dutiful executives in the armed services avoid these stupid blunders by following a Golden Rule policy toward their men.

If lack of obedience is the most frequent cause of service men being brought on the carpet, then as obedience is a moral quality, so should punishment be employed as a moral act, its prime purpose being to nourish and foster obedience. Before meting punishment, it is necessary to judge a man, and judgment means to think over, to compare, to weigh probable effects on the man and on the command, and to give the offender the benefit of any reasonable doubt. Before any punishment is given, the questions must be faced: "What good will it achieve?" If the answer is none, then punishment is not in order. Punishment of a vindictive nature is a crime; when it is given uselessly, or handed out in a strictly routine manner, it is an immoral act.

But when punishment has to be awarded, the case must be handled promptly, and its issue must be stated incisively, so that there is no room for doubt that the officer is certain about his judgments. Men know when they are in the wrong, and even when it works to their disadvantage, they will feel increased respect toward the officer who knows what should be done, and states it without hemming and hawing. The showing of firmness is the first requirement in this kind of action. It is as foolish to go back on a punishment as to threaten it and not follow through. The officer who is always running around threatening to court martial his subordinates is merely avowing his own weakness, and crying that he has lost all of his moral means. Even the dullest men do not mistake vehemence and abuse for signs of strength.

To punish a body of men, for offenses committed by two or three of their number, even though the offense is obnoxious and it is impossible to put the finger on the culprits, is the act of a sadist, and is no more excusable within military organization than in civilian society. Any officer who resorts to this stupid practice will forfeit the loyalty of the best men in his command. There is no reason why it should be otherwise.

As a general rule, it is a serious error to reprimand a subordinate in the presence of any other person, because of the unnecessary hurt to his pride. But circumstances moderate the rule. If the offense for which he is being reprimanded involves injury of any sort to some other person, or persons, it may be wholly proper to apply the treatment in their presence. For example, the bully or the smart-aleck who wantonly humiliates his own subordinates is not entitled to have his own feelings spared. However, in the presence of his own superior, an officer is always ill-advised to administer oral punishment to one of his own juniors, since the effect is to destroy confidence both up and down the line.

It is always the duty of an officer to intervene, toward the protection of his own men against any manifest injustice, whatever its source. In fact, this trust is so implicit that he should be ready to risk his professional reputation upon it, when he is convinced beyond doubt that the man is being unfairly assailed, or that due process is not being followed. Both higher authority and civil authority occasionally overreach; an officer stands as a shield protecting his men against unfair treatment from any quarter. _But it is decidedly not his duty to attempt to cheat law or thwart justice for the sake of his men simply because they are his men._ His job, as Shakespeare puts it, is "to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, to wrong the wronger till he render right."

Finally, the best policy on punishments is to eliminate the frictions which are the cause of most transgressions. When a ship is happy, men do their duty. Scarcely anything will cross them up more quickly than to see rewards given with an uneven hand. Even the stinker who has no ambition but to duck work can recognize a deserving man, and will burn if that man is bypassed in favor of a bootlicker or some other lightweight.

Nothing is more vain than to give a promotion, or any reward, in the hope, or on the promise, that the character who receives it will hit the sawdust trail and suddenly reform.

Duty is the only sure proving ground. Men, like motors, should be judged on their all-around performance. There is no other way to generate the steady pull over the long grind.