Once an Eagle

by Anton Myrer

Inflexibility—it was the worst human failing: you could learn to check impetuosity, you could overcome fear through confidence and laziness through discipline, but rigidity of mind allowed for no antidote.

slow humor of the Slav.

greatest possible use of individual initiative by the men of your commands.”

he had moved from shock to dismay and finally to choking rage.

“Above all encourage the greatest possible use of individual initiative.”

day of stealth and worry and decisions. He watched Raebyrne

“I see.” Caldwell nodded again. “You’re a lieutenant, Damon. As of this moment.”

You do not abandon a sound strategical concept for minor tactical gains. It’s like pawn-grabbing in chess: the results are usually disastrous. Ludendorff has allowed Von Boehn’s initial success in the Marne Salient to cause him to give up his crucial plan for driving the British into the sea—the Flanders plan.” The Colonel’s eyes had twinkled in the lamplight. “The old squarehead doesn’t know it yet, but he’s lost his chance to win the war. More than that, their advance has destroyed the big stalemate once and for all: they have turned it into a war of movement, which is the way it began and the way it should have been waged. Now the doors are all open. We can thrust and envelop and thrust again, until we have Metz and Thionville, and the road into Germany.”

Right now …Victory is a matter of opportunities clearly seen and swiftly exploited.”

“Opportunity once forsaken is opportunity lost forever.”

all it was to be an infantryman: defenseless, pitiable, and alone; armed with nothing but one’s own flesh and blood.

Why did it always come down to this, why were they always faced with this draconian law of desperate choices, harsh alternatives that were no alternatives at all?

“They need you, those kids—who have they got to look to but you older men? What else is going to glue them together if you’re not there? Answer me! I can’t show them everything …” He checked himself and lowered his voice.

“He has no fear. None at all.” He pointed at Sam, nodding. “I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale. That’s the crux of it. There’s something very wrong with Merrick: he’s not a man. I wasn’t aware of it at first; but battle always brings this out. That action at Paulnay Ridge—to expose his people that way, and for nothing! It’s perfectly all right with me if he wants to hurry toward his own destruction.

“Because we have no choice. To falter now is to breed worse evils than we have. We are saddled with leaders whose concept of strategy and tactics has been destroyed by four years of unparalleled numbers, mountainous losses. It is like asking blind men to run an obstacle course. They are no longer capable of thought … ”

“But it’s not that: we seem to be incapable of insisting, that’s the meat of it. We are a race of headlong altruists. We rush to a foreign land in a deluge of embattled sympathy, we give away clothing, cigarettes, our rations. We even on occasion”—and his eyes sparkled—“repair the battered living quarters of certain comely French civilians. We do everything in our power to proclaim our good intentions, our nobility of purpose, our loftiness of soul … and all because we think we’re too good for the rest of the world.” “Is that the reason?” “Yes, more or less. We can’t be bothered with the sordid details, the actualities of human motivation. We stubbornly, sublimely refuse to see man as he is, Sam—we’re so damned certain about how he ought to be. We know how he ought to be—he ought to be American

“The essential absurdity of the soldier’s life: look at us, standing here well groomed and housed and fed, all at our ease—while up there a few miles men are living and fighting and hiding and dying like some particularly odious species of ferret. A few miles away … I shouldn’t trouble myself over such thoughts; a good soldier wouldn’t, I suppose. But I can’t help it. I can harden my heart, but I cannot alter it. What an awfully lonely calling it is!—you continually find yourself alone with your speculations, your afterthoughts, your fears. I should never have been a soldier;

But here beside him stood a man who could exercise far more than will—who inspired others by the force of his intellect: by his wit, his compassion, his imagination, by his early and all-embracing wisdom … If I could have a father again, this is the kind of man I’d want, he thought.

Promise me you won’t let your mind atrophy. Self-righteousness. It’s the occupational disease of the soldier, and it’s the worst sin in all the world. Yes! Because it spawns arrogance, selfishness, indifference. We may not be seeing so much of each other for a time now, what with one thing and another … Don’t let the weight of things numb you. Read, think, disagree with everything, if you like—but force your mind outward. Promise me that.” “Yes, sir, I will.” Damon nodded slowly. “I will, Colonel.”