Από την Κρήτη εθελοντής στον Αμερικανικό Στρατό., item 42

• November 1, 2018 06:39:20 Anastasia Ioannou

  men is all but exhausted, it will be seen how im-

  portant this word obedience is. These officers who

  seem cranky with you because you do not grasp

  the essentials as promptly as you should are in

  reality in possession of certain facts, certain ex-

  periences which taught them the necessity of pre-

  paring you beforehand for the struggles ahead. They

  want to learn to depend on you as well as to have

  you learn to depend on them. The interminable

  days of dry-as-dust drilling mean something. Noth-

  ing is being done that is unimportant, no matter if

  it does seem so to you. You will realize the value

  of this knowledge at some critical moment later on

  and you will thank these very officers for their

  painstaking care of you and their desire to see you

  become rapidly the kind of a soldier who can be

  relied on.

      In the second place the officer over you is in turn

  subject to even more rigorous discipline than you

  are. In addition to the performance of his duties

  he is held responsible for your condition, When

  the hour comes that he is called to lead you into

  some particularly dangerous field of action lie will

  be held strictly responsible for what happens. How

  much more successful will he be, and how much

  more credit will be attached to your company, if

  there is mutual understanding by which you act in

  concert.

     All of this formality, this observance of detail,

  is but for the one reason—the teaching of obcdience

  —or in other words, discipline. Obedience is the

  prime consideration of the soldier under all condi-

  tions. He must train his mind to be open for any

  command and his actions must be prompt once

  this command is fully understood. There may be

  times when certain commands seem queer, even

  wrong, in your estimation, but that is none of your

  business. Teach yourself to remember this and to

  jump forward when you are commanded to do so.

      If some other system had proved as good it would

  
  

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