In units today, the senior subaltern is a lost instituion. Shortage of officers has resulted in a situation when there is hardly anytime when there are a sizeable number of young officers present. In such a scenario, there is a need to provice some substitute for grooming the new officers joining units.
The following extracts could form a good nucleus for material on the subject.
EXTRACTS FROM "A GOOD MAN IS A GOOD SOLDIER" FROM THE BOOK "FOLLOW ME II" BY MAJOR GENERAL AUBREY S. NEWMAN
There are some thoughts I would give any young man leaving to join the army-
- The first thing to get straight is that you are entering a profession. As in any other profession, good time Charlies and deadbeats travel a bumpy road.
-To go from high school to college is from one young society to another, it's a much greater transition to go from high school or college to the army. Suddenly you are in a man's word, dealing with serious responsibilities to others. Equally vital to understand, you no longer work alone [as in taking academic tests], but not must work in concert with others-which is much harder.
-A good businessman enjoys his work and it's the same way in the army. For poor businessman life is a burden and it's like that in the military profession too.
-Life in uniform is what you make it, just as it is on the outside.
-The armed services rest on a foundation of discipline-which is not the disagreeable thing many civilians visualize, nor is it hard to understand. Discipline is the willing obedience to all orders and, in the absence of orders, to what you think those orders would have been.
-Don’t be too quick to get chummy with new acquaintances; they maybe the wrong chums. If you run with the wrong crowd something happens inside your heart and to your attitude as a man and as a soldier-and that's a real misfortune.
-Reserve your ideas on how to reform the army until such time as you have won increased right by experience, increased rank, knowledge and understanding.
-Many things that seems senseless and useless to recruits have been proved by long experience to be the best way to serve the overall good. Young men new to the service should be slow to decide they know more overnight than all others said have preceded them. First learn to swim with the tide - there will be plenty of time to swim against the tide later.
-To say Sir demeans no man. It's a custom that helps military men at all levels bridge the rank gap-recognizing its existence while talking man to man.
-Similarly, saluting is a distinction reserved for military men-a friendly and professional greeting between soldiers in good standing.
-The more you know about anything, the more interesting it becomes. Don't wait to be force-fed information. Ask questions, study manuals and practice techniques with weapons and equipment. You will soon be an expert in many skills and fields if every day at every opportunity you seek to know.
-Develop the habit not only of being one time, but so regulating your days that you are on time without scrambling.
-Don’t have your feelings stuck out to be bruised, or they will be. When dealing with thousands of people, it's not possible to rub everybody's for the right way all the time when issuing orders. Just do what the man saves-and forget it.
-Observe those who have been in service for years: watch how they meet problems and perform their duties. Emulate things you admire in good soldiers, avoid errors made by bad ones.
-Just as "ignorance of orders is no excuse" in civilian life, it's the same way with military regulations and orders. Study those that affect you personally.
-Don’t drift, aim for advancement.
-The same things that make fine soldiers make successful civilians, including good character and good habits, sense of responsibility, getting along with others, good judgment and the continuing will to strive. Military service has an intangible something to offer any man-but you have to reach for it.
-The army has no quick and easy method to make a man out of a bum. An interesting comment on one case was made by a senior general in a reply to a soldier's father who had written a letter berating the army for not instilling discipline in his son. The general said, tactfully, it was hardly reasonable to expect the army to do in six months what the father had failed to accomplish in 18 years.
-The gripers are unhappy ones and they always distort facts. Look closely and you see they are really kicking themselves, trying to alibi their own failures and weaknesses.
-The measure of a man and a soldier is the ability to take it when the going is rough. To "blow your top" does not make you a tough cookie; it's just lack of self-control. Any dope can lose his temper.
-All successful men need human understanding-the ability to understand people and what makes them do what they do. Military service offers an unparalleled opportunity to cultivate this quantity and to learn to get along with others, as important in civilian life as in the army.
