Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 78
lead them effectively from in front. Platoon sergeants
and company commanders are far more important to
privates than are generals, and most private soldiers
remember only the eccentricities of their distant senior
officers. Your theatric attempts to conjure up charisma
have caused your soldiers to write you off as a phony
flake. Remember when a unit of your soldiers marched
past your field command post in the rain, and you
stood outside the tent entrance to show them that you
shared their suffering? They concluded that you didn’t
have enough common sense to get out of the rain!
I calculated the cost of dismissing you. The government has made a substantial investment to develop
you as a senior commander over the years—perhaps
even as much money as I hope to make in my future
senior officer’s pension. Could you still be considered
an asset? The Army has gone through a period of rapid
promotion for almost all eligible officers, so maybe
some have been advanced before they were ready. You
were assigned beyond your leadership ability; yet,
you might be fit to serve somewhere on staff. Under
the circumstances, I cannot recommend that you
be kicked upstairs to some other position of higher
responsibility. Since you are not a career competitor
to my boss or to me, we would have no reason to block
your reassignment elsewhere at your current rank. Of
course, you will undergo a psychological evaluation
so that you will have very little hope of appealing our
decision.
Therefore, it behooves us to give you the push
and hope that some of the stink of this operational
stag