The Rewards and Perils of Leadership
In mid November of 1944 our unit was located in Germany inside the Siegfried Line, in the vicinity of Stolberg. On the 16th of November we were poised along with other units to participate in an offensive to secure some high ground in the Hastenrath-Scherpenseel front. The weather during the preceding weeks had been intolerable, with incessant periods of rain, turning the terrain into a sodden mess. Walking was mostly a series of lurching, sliding and wallowing motions.
When the assault began, we were in immediate reserve and after moving forward some distance, we left the roadway and came to halt in a large field. There was a peculiar smell that hung heavy in the air and turned out to be that of decaying sugar beets mixed with equal parts of the usual scent familiar to the environs of a farm. The trees and bushes that fringed the area were all draped with strips of aluminum foil dropped by our planes in order to confuse enemy radar, giving the appearance of tinsel having been thrown haphazardly onto the boughs of a Christmas tree.
We were ordered to dismount from our half-track and prepare for digging in. Our squad leader led us away two by two to the area that was assigned as our position and ordered us to dig in.
I found myself partnered with a new, young soldier who had just joined us. His newness was so conspicuous because of his neat uniform, his brand new equipment, and even the chalk smudge of his embarkation number still on his steel helmet. Before we had taken too many steps through the mire, I became quickly aware that I had a very lively conversationalist for a companion. Most of the conversation, however, took the form of questions.
"Where are you from?"
"Pennsylvania, near Allentown."
"How long have you been with the Company?"
"Since the first days of July."
"How old are you?"
Nineteen in August."
"Did anything bad ever happen to you, like getting hit or something?"
"Yeah, back in Normandy."
"Did it hurt?"
"It didn�t feel good."
No sooner had our squad leader left to assign the next team to its position, then this young soldier blurted out to me in a most apologetic tone that he had never been in combat before, as though that fact had been a deliberate plot on his part, and not having been in combat before, he really didn�t know what to do, how to conduct himself, or what was expected of him. Then he made the startling suggestion that since he had never been in combat before and I had, he thought it only fair that he should dig the foxhole. He would gladly do all the digging if I would just tell him what to do. Having someone dig a foxhole for me was a luxury I had never before enjoyed; indeed, having minimal authority of any kind to a nineteen-year-old PFC was as alien as water is to the moon.
As I stood there observing this frightened novice, I began experiencing a strange, but marvelous metamorphosis. I began seeing myself in an altogether different light. With the care and keeping of this solitary mortal creature thrust upon me, I realized that I must now comport myself in an appropriate manner, in view of my new and unfamiliar responsibility.
I told him that one did not simply plunge into the matter of digging a foxhole; there were certain vital matters to be considered. Trying frantically to think of some reasons to justify the remark I had just blundered into, I said, as I strode back and forth, that first the matter of the proximity of trees must be considered because of the deadliness of tree bursts, and then there was the matter of an adequate field of fire and, of course, the displacement of the ground from the hole in order to build a parapet. He said very sheepishly that he never realized that there was so much involved in digging a hole, but I reminded him that he had much to learn.
As this metamorphosis continued, I noticed a decided lowering in the tone of my voice as I spoke to him, and not only was there a lowering in my voice, but I also detected the unusual inflection of command as I instructed him.
Carefully surveying the area with the eye of an engineer, striding back and forth with several studied pauses now and then, I faced him abruptly and told him I had now made my decision. With a masterstroke, I pulled my bayonet from its scabbard and, bending over, I outlined, with its point, the dimension of the foxhole in the soft earth. Then, with dramatic flourish, I jabbed the bayonet into the center of the outline, (This impressed the poor devil no end) and with a voice loaded with as much authority as I could muster, I said, "This is precisely where I want the foxhole dug!"
It then occurred to me, that since I had now undertaken my first combat command, my next important decision was the matter of the proper stance I should take. Should I stand with legs astride and my hands on my hips? No. I thought this too intimidating. I elected instead to assume a more democratic posture. I would simply slouch on the ground beside him and direct operations from there.
As he stood there briefly, I could see he was undergoing an emotional spasm. He then remarked that he had just been struck with the historic significance of the moment. This would be his first combat mission and he was now entering the select ranks of the combat infantry soldier. I agreed that he would never forget this 16th day of November 1944, because it was on this day that he had for the first time unsheathed his entrenching tool in anger. As I gazed solemnly out into the distance, I said that I too remembered vividly, and with much pain, the similar moment in my own life when I had been initiated into the ranks of this combat unit. I felt it unnecessary, however, to burden him with the unhappy details of that occasion, when back in the battle-ravaged hedgerows of Normandy, I had joined this Company after it had been bloodied in its first action. It was on that day, that, for the first time, I had also unsheathed and brandished my entrenching tool in true anger, when our good Company Commander, Captain Jack Cook, had recommended to me that I dig a hole, a hole of an adequate dimension to accommodate the baser needs of the Company.
My new ward stood silently for another few seconds, savoring his moment in history. Then he threw himself into his new mission with vengeance; his entrenching tool taking angry bites of earth from within the carefully delineated area that I had marked for him. With each shovelful of earth exploding into the air, there seemed to be an accompanying question: "Where are all those tanks and half-tracks loaded with Infantry that were with us when we started? Where are they now and why are we so alone?" "With that large, heavily armored, open half-track that�s like a big hole on wheels setting there, why do we have to dig this one?" "Do you think I�ll freeze when the first shells start coming in?" "Do German soldiers smell different than we do?" "Is it true that when bullets come real close, they don�t whine, but really snap?" "Is it true that some soldiers get so scared that they end up walking with their legs real straight?"
Whenever his steel helmet appeared above ground level, another spade full of earth erupted out of the hole, followed immediately by another barrage of questions. It appeared that the matter of fear seemed to have an obsessive hold on him. Did being scared make him a coward? Would being afraid make him do funny things? Wasn�t everybody scared when they went into combat for the first time? Very quietly, I explained to him that he should not look at fear as his mortal enemy, but rather, as his friend. I told him that controlled fear would infinitely sharpen all of his senses and that controlled fear would give him strengths he had heretofore never experienced.
I astonished myself with the ease and calmness and matter of factness with which every question was answered. What a delightful and heady feeling! It was then that he paused in his digging and transformed his muddied pit into a confessional booth. Very warmly, he confessed to me how fortunate he felt to have found and buddied up with such a wise and experienced combat mentor; it must have been all this accrued wisdom that had accounted for my having survived so long. I told him that I did not disagree with his very perceptive estimate, and that he would do well to take heed to the counsel of those who were more experienced and wiser and older than he. (It had been determined during the course of the interrogation that I was at least 10 months his senior.) This would certainly enhance his chances for survival; otherwise, he faced a most dismal and uncertain future. With that, he resumed his digging with even more enthusiasm, as he seemed very intent on further impressing his new confidante.
As I sat there totally intoxicated with the rarefied air of my new role, I began hearing mutterings rise from the hole, and along with the mutterings I could hear the ominous sound of the entrenching tool striking some resisting object. These sounds persisted as he struck again and again at the stubborn culprit that had stopped his downward progress. He would pause now and then and give me looks of almost total despair, sensing possibly that his first important mission was about to end in complete failure. He then readjusted his entrenching tool so that it took the form of a pick and again began viciously attacking the obstruction that had brought matters to a stalemate.
Realizing that in leadership there are times when the leader must join the troops in the field, with real irritation, I decided that I must descend from the stratosphere of my lofty new realm to see what the problem was. Visibly showing my annoyance, I ordered the serf to vacate the hole. Confident that in a very short time, as I would bring my experience to bear on the matter, there would be a gasp of awe wafting over my shoulder from my eager observer, as I quickly and efficiently resolved the problem.
Getting down on my knees, with my buttocks pointing skyward, I reached down to the bottom of the hole and began vigorously clawing and scraping at the dirt with my hands to determine the nature and magnitude of the alleged, unyielding obstruction. As I scraped and scraped at the dirt, in absolute horror I uncovered a very large and very cylindrical object. Immediately, I suspended all breathing. With eyes wide and eyeballs locked at rigid attention, lest even their movement detonate what, by now, after the savage blows it had taken, must be a very angry unexploded shell, I arose unsteadily on very shaky legs. In enforced wordlessness, I groped for and grabbed the shoulder of my cohort and led him away on tiptoes. Then that most insidious and demeaning of all instincts, the instinct of self-preservation, treacherously commandeered all my senses and all my energy, and with a bewildered and disenchanted neophyte in tow, I fled in shameless haste from what I was certain was an impending Vesuvius, alas, leaving behind, by that mound of earth, all my bravado, amidst the still steaming wreckage of my skyrocketing career as a military leader. And as though in final insult, there lay silently on the ground that abominable entrenching tool, pointing mockingly to the carefully selected site of the abandoned foxhole. How fleeting and how transient the glories of leadership!
