Document created: 18 August 03
Air University Review, January-February 1975

It would be difficult to find a more appropriate introduction to the topic of military professionalism than an account of one who epitomized that quality to the very highest degree: General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, the first Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He was one of several aviation greats who have recently joined the ranks of

The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm . . . . 

So we who aspire to military professionalism will do well to keep green in our memory his life and work.

General Spaatz was a pioneer aviator. He learned to fly in 1915 and was a combat pilot and flying field commander in France during World War I. Between the wars, he was an ardent follower of General Billy Mitchell, an enthusiastic and effective advocate of air power and of a separate and independent Air Force, coequal with the Army and Navy.

In World War II, General Spaatz commanded all Strategic U.S. Air Forces in Europe and was General Eisenhower's principal aviation adviser, having no equal in the Supreme Allied Commander's high regard and affection. General Eisenhower frequently referred to Spaatz as the greatest air commander, air tactician, and air strategist of World War II. He was the only airman and the only general officer present at the surrender ceremonies of both Germany and Japan.

After the war, it was his influence, more than that of any other man, which resulted in the Act of September 1947 creating the Air Force as we know it today. Thus, it was inevitable and entirely fitting that he became the first Chief of the new coequal, independent Air Force.

After retirement he continued to render valuable service whenever his experience and wisdom were called upon by the Secretary of Defense or Commander in Chief He was Chairman of the Board that picked the site for the U.S. Air Force Academy, recommended its organization, its curriculum, and the implementing legislation. He also served three Presidents on the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Spaatz was one general who never made a major mistake. This statement has broad factual basis, as a matter of record as well as from my fifty-seven years of dose association with him since November 1917. I commend to you and to all students of air power, historians, and future air leaders the study of his writings, teachings, and methods on the tactics, strategy, and organization of military air power.

That profession which General Spaatz served so magnificently exists as a vital element to promote the welfare and security of our country. Let us consider some of the characteristics of the military profession. What sets it apart? What makes it distinctive? What are its advantages and disadvantages? How does it compare with other professions like law, medicine, teaching, or journalism? I mention these because in my college days I was torn between journalism and the law while my father hoped I would be a doctor. But World War I intruded and interrupted career plans for me, as successive wars have done for the personal plans of so many of my fellow Americans in the last half century. So military service became my career, and it is from that perspective that I evaluate the military profession then, now, and for the future.

In 1917, when I enlisted (along with a million others) because President Wilson had asked Congress to declare war on Germany, the military profession was not well known to our people generally. I had never seen a regular Army officer or soldier. The National Guardsman was the only one I had ever seen in military uniform. It was a new and strange world I was ushered into when I reported to the first officers training camp in May 1917. There I saw my first general officer, Brigadier General Robert Lee Bullard. He rode a horse; we marched in summer heat, on dusty Arkansas roads, carrying a rifle and a 65-pound pack. I there and then formed a definite conclusion that a general’s job was good work if you could get it, a view that has not altered, although it has been shaken at times, during the intervening years.

When I reported to my first regiment, the 64th Infantry at Fort Bliss, Texas, as a second lieutenant, I found that private soldiers were paid $21 per month, and the government allowed 19¢ per day to feed each of them.

Chance gave me an opportunity to transfer to aviation and learn to fly. I got command of my first squadron in September 1918 at 22 years of age--200 men entrusted to my care and leadership and who looked to me for guidance, welfare, and protection. A responsibility? Yes, an awesome one, requiring 16 hours a day with after-duty hours for worrying. An opportunity? Yes, I so considered it and, in retrospect, still do. Especially when I was authorized, a year later, to recruit a squadron and take it to the Philippines.

That postwar Air Service was a very small organization, 18,000 men, 1800 officers. The first budget I helped defend, in 1926 (I was then on the Air Staff in Washington), was for $26 million, total. That sum would not buy one B-1 bomber today. That Army Air Service had 24 identifiable officer career skills; today's Air Force has over 300 career officer specialties.

One of the earliest decisions a young officer has to make, and also one of the most fateful, is which of those career specialties he shall pursue. They fall generally into two major classifications: command and staff. The command opportunities are considerably fewer in number, and the number diminishes rapidly with the passing years. There is, for example, at any one time, but one Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one service chief

The rewards are greater, by normal standards, in command careers, but they are by no means inconsequential in staff careers. Staff officers frequently have larger influence on great events than commanders. General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, exercised more influence on national and international councils and events than Generals MacArthur or Eisenhower, the Supreme Commanders in the field.

The first thing an officer must determine, in career selection, is personal satisfactions and ambitions. It will help greatly in this exercise if he has the capacity to recognize and evaluate accurately his ability, his relative standing in his peer group. Is he average, above average, or outstanding, with reference to the professional group in which he proposes to compete?

If you will permit another personal reference, I almost decided against a post-World War I military career because I judged that West Point graduates had an educational advantage which I probably would not be able to overcome. That is why, after deciding to compete, I took every educational opportunity presented, including night school at the University of the Philippines and George Washington University and full-time courses at the Law School of Columbia University and at the University of Southern California, where I completed a degree in journalism.

I very early decided that my career specialties would be flying and command. Diligent pursuit of the former brought the opportunity to engage in some especially interesting enterprises, like the Question Mark, a world's flight endurance record, and the Pan American Goodwill Flight, among others.

My pursuit of command opportunities won me command of squadrons for eight years, of groups two years, and air forces five years.

Despite my earnest and ardent effort to qualify for and obtain command roles, my thirty years of active duty were divided equally between command and staff assignments. In retrospect, I can now say that both contained career satisfactions, but the command side offered greater opportunity to influence major events. It also entailed more hazard and heartburn.

The successful staff officer probably works harder. It takes more effort to influence the decisions of military superiors than to make the decisions yourself, but the dangers inherent in decision-making are infinitely greater. The commander at any level has good people to help him, but he alone must bear the burdens and consequences of decision-making. As President Truman well said, "The buck stops here."

The military profession offers some very definite career advantages and opportunities, and it suffers some handicaps, uncertainties, and disappointments. My assessment of the advantages and opportunities, from 57 years of pursuing and observing them, includes the following:

a. The privilege of living among and working with men and women of the military profession. No other group of that size possesses so high a level of honesty, morality, and integrity.

I noted recently that there is now popular recognition of that fact. The Institute of Social Research of the University of Michigan recently published the results of a survey showing that the public rates the military highest among major institutions, according to how good a job that institution is doing for the country.

In the same survey, Americans were asked about "the people who are presently running" some of these institutions. They were asked to tell "to what extent you think these people are honest and moral." In this item the military ranked very near the top, ahead of all other federal groups except the Supreme Court; ahead, for example, of Congress, the news media, and all other federal government officials.

There has been a lot of left wing, liberal shooting lately at the code of honor at the service academies--West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs--alleging that the oath "We will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate among us those who do" is now outmoded, old-fashioned, and no longer needed or valid. Well, the tragedy of Watergate would never have happened had its actors and agents abided by that code.

b. The opportunity to serve with people of loyalty, dedication, and patriotism. In World War II, I had the privilege of commanding and serving with more than a quarter of a million such men and women, more than 20,000 of whom lost their lives while engaged in demonstrating those qualities.

c. The opportunity for personal education, learning technical, economic, organization, and management skills. I know of no other organization where there is an equal opportunity for these advantages today.

The Air Force, for example, has more than 1000 Ph.D.'s in its officer corps and several doctorates in its enlisted ranks. Nearly all officers have a college education, while more than 20,000 have master's degrees. Ninety-eight percent of those enlisting today are high school graduates, and the principal inducement for enlisting is to acquire further education or to learn technical skills. The Air Force is the largest and most successful trade school in the world.

People in the civilian community, some 10 million of them, learned, while temporarily in the armed services during the Second World War, a respect and admiration for military organization and method. That accounts, at least in part, for the large numbers of military men who upon retirement are sought by civilian industries.

d. The military community is a good environment in which to live and rear families. Less crime, fewer economic inequalities, and a better environment are to be found there; better sanitation, better standards of health, more regard for the rights of others. Very few civilian communities can equal the economic and social status of all military posts, camps, and stations.

e. Military service offers rare opportunities for travel, for meeting the peoples of other countries, and for the stimulating experience of living and working with foreign Allied leaders and people. How else, for example, would I have had the opportunity to meet with the political and military leaders of all the Allied nations?

The career disadvantages for the military profession include:

a. Economic ones. Salaries are on the whole considerably lower than those in civilian life. Anyone who puts a premium on money or material things will do well to pass up the military career. There are no service millionaires.

b. A military career does not offer some of the personal ego satisfactions associated with political life or the arts. Normally, few military men can hope to exercise community, state, and national leadership like a politician or a journalist.

c. The military life is more nomadic, subject to more frequent changes of station or residence, than most civilian professions. Some term it a rootless society, a gypsy life. I notice, however, that the children of military families seem to compete well in school and seem generally well above average in appearance, habits, education, and industry.

d. The military life is more demanding on the individual than most civilian professions. No other profession possesses the personal hazard associated with the normal requirements of the military. For example, some West Point classes have been practically decimated by our periodic wars, like Korea and Vietnam.

The military may require more personal sacrifice, longer periods of family separation, and greater hardships than the civil-life professions. On the other hand, these are among the challenges of the military profession. What civilian will ever have the satisfaction of shooting down a MIG, evading a SAM, or destroying an enemy weapons factory?

Our profession has always been in the forefront of adventure. Lewis and Clark were a lieutenant and a captain; and ten of the first twelve men to leave footprints on the moon were military professionals.

Since a critical factor for the military professional is leadership, I should like to discuss this subject briefly.

The subject of leadership has long been one of my prime interests. Upon returning from my first Sunday school class, at five years of age, I am told, I asked my father whether I would have a chance, if I worked hard and lived right, to be, some day, one of the Twelve Apostles. He thought not. Subsequent events have amply verified his judgment.

I have two favorite quotations concerning leadership. The first is from an ancient fable: "A flock of sheep led by a lion will always prevail over a pride of lions led by a sheep."

The second came from the writings of Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, who said, "The more mechanical become the weapons with which we fight, the less mechanical must be the spirit which controls them."

I suppose if you asked any ten people to name the requisites of a leader, all would have courage as number one on their lists. I would agree, but perhaps for a different reason.

It is true that in earlier times physical courage was the first requirement of the leader. In the days of knighthood this was so. At the Battle of Hastings, King Harold was at the head of his troops as he was supposed to be. In the Napoleonic wars the. Emperor's marshals often turned the tide of battle by leading the charge. With the changing times the need for the courage to get shot at, to take the personal risks in the front ranks on the battlefield, passed to commanders of lower echelons. By the time of the First World War, even division commanders were seldom seen in combat; army and supreme commanders never. Some decry this trend. The British General J. F. C. Fuller wrote a book, about 1935, the main theme of which was a warning that Britain would not prevail in future wars unless her admirals stood on the quarterdeck like Nelson with the flagship the first battle-wagon in the line, nor until her soldiers were led by a man out front as Roberts and Kitchener were wont to do.

In my book courage is still the first requisite of the leader, but there are new requirements for displaying it. The brand of courage that top leaders were required to exercise in World War II was the courage of decision-making. In actuality, there are not many candidates for top leadership, and one reason is that most men hate to make fateful decisions. When the military commander has to make a decision which will mean success or defeat, which will cost human lives, most men shirk the task. The great majority are happier to follow. I am convinced that Eisenhower would have much preferred being shot at while leading an airborne division into combat than having to make many of the decisions of the Supreme Commander in World War II.

My candidate for the most courageous leader of all time will be the man who decides when to push the button to launch the defense against the nuclear attack of the future. He may be deep under a mountainside, as far removed from the scene of combat as one can be. If he decides and acts in time, we shall survive. If he lacks the courage and decisiveness to move in time, we are lost. He may have less than one minute in which to make that decision.

Back in the eighteenth century, Marshal Saxe said, "Though the first quality a general should possess is courage, without which all others are of little value, the second is brains, and the third is good health."

So, let us have a look at brains or intelligence with relation to leadership. My historical and biographical studies of the great leaders of the past, and my observation of the leaders I have known, do not indicate that a high IQ is the certain hallmark of the leader. I do believe that all leaders are above the average of the groups they lead and all are brilliant in some areas. Yet in other ways some have been quite stupid. At least one leader who achieved phenomenal success for a time was quite mad. His name, of course, was Adolf Hitler.

Since I find so few leaders who were Ph.D.'s, perhaps that is why I have been concerned of late at the current trend to turn over to scientists the selection of our weapons, and indeed the delineation of our tactics and strategy. As I see it, if you want to go to the moon, call on the Ph.D.'s; if, on the other hand, you want to keep peace on earth, follow men better versed in the social sciences--those who know how to influence and control the emotions and the minds of men.

A leader who can, early in his career, establish a reputation as being endowed with good luck is fortunate indeed. Everyone wants to play on a winning team. Napoleon's first question about a prospective new general was, "Is he lucky?"

The best definition of luck that I have seen is: "An individual is lucky when a thoroughly prepared man meets, recognizes and seizes an excellent opportunity."

I read an acknowledged authority one day who said that all great leaders of the past had one thing in common, great physical stamina, and all great leaders of the future must be sound of wind and limb--a strong plea for physical fitness. By a strange coincidence, the same day I read a little passage I think is worth passing on: "Down the streets of Portsmouth, more than a hundred years ago, walked a sailor with one arm, one eye, a persistent state of nerves, and unable to tread a ship's deck without being seasick. Indeed he would probably have been in a home for incurables, were not his name Admiral Lord Nelson. The man's spirit drove the flesh." The point is: when weighing the characteristics of a leader, remember that a stout spirit can drive a weak body a long way.

There is another facet of leadership which interests me. There are no reluctant leaders. A real leader must really want the job. George Washington is sometimes cited as an example to the contrary. I do not agree. Washington went to every fire that started in the Colonies from his early manhood. Nobody could have even an Indian war without George Washington. Not only was he the best-trained and most-experienced military leader of his time but everybody knew it.

Churchill had been at pains to acquaint the British people with his qualities and his availability from the time of the Boer War. They did not have to look for him in England's darkest hour. He was there, ready and willing.

If one finds need for a leader and has to coax or urge his selection to take the job, the best advice is to pass him over; he is not the right man.

It is strange that anyone should strive to be recognized as a leader, as the rewards have been slim indeed. Churchill was repaid for saving Britain by being defeated at the next election. Napoleon died in exile. Lincoln was shot. Robert E. Lee came away from Appomattox and four years of crucial leadership with nothing but his horse and his sword.

All successful leaders seem to have been articulate. They had a faculty for inspiring their followers with the spoken word. They could and did say the right thing at the right time. A leader need not be an orator of the powers of a Mark Anthony, Bryan, or Churchill. MacAuliffe was articulate at Bastogne with one word: "Nuts." Patton was often very articulate with two words: "Follow me."

The only quotation I have ever heard from Pershing was reported by an American correspondent present at the tomb of Lafayette on June 14, 1917, Pershing's second day in Paris. He made a great speech that said it all: "Lafayette, we are here." There are many other fine examples: Lawrence's "Don't give up the ship." Dewey's "You may fire when ready, Gridley." Lincoln's effort at Gettysburg will always be a classic.

One of my favorite quotations, in this vein, comes from a message General Foch sent to General Joffre during the second battle of the Marne: "My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, situation excellent, I am attacking."

All great leaders have had the wit, the timing, and the courage to influence their followers to action at the critical time by a few well-chosen words, or by example, or both.

The day may not be far away when we shall urgently need the greatest leader we have ever had. It is my hope that he will have the stature for the occasion. May he be well trained for his task. I pray that he have the audacity to assume the task and the courage to make the fateful decision in time to save us. May we have the good luck to find him and the good sense to follow him.

And now, some observations and predictions about the military profession and professionals and perhaps a little advice--making like a patriarch! Is it not written that "your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions"?

Much of the appeal in our profession stems from its history and tradition. But not all tradition is necessarily good. I remember that Churchill once made a proposal to a stuffy old admiral who said, "Oh, Mr. Prime Minister, we couldn't do that. It's against Naval tradition." Whereupon Churchill responded with sarcastic scorn, "Ah yes, naval tradition: rum, sodomy and the lash."

Examine continually all traditions, customs, and procedures of the past, to see if they meet today's needs and conditions. Hold on stubbornly to the good but eliminate promptly those not pertinent to these times and requirements.

One of the historic traditions now giving ground slowly--too slowly, I believe-- is that the military profession is exclusively for men. Recently, for example, several generals and admirals testified before a Congressional committee against admitting females to the service academies. They said all of their graduates must be trained for combat, and all must agree that women should never participate in combat.

This was said either tongue in cheek or it was a flagrant miscalculation. Each of these military seniors knew that they were sending some of their graduates immediately to pursue advanced studies in universities in law, medicine, engineering, and economic--nothing to do with combat. They were wisely training them for administration, management, weapons selection, and other noncombat specialties.

The records show that fewer than 25 percent of all military academy graduates ever participate in combat, despite the fact that we have had four wars in this century.

Women should and will be admitted to the armed services academies. Since we have women officers, they must be given equal opportunities for qualification as the men with whom they will have to compete. Of course, they should not be admitted in trifling numbers--1, 2, 3, or a dozen or a score. Instead a bill should be enacted providing for an orderly process. It should stipulate that 200 women be admitted to each academy in 1976, enough for a squadron or company. Thereafter the number admitted should be the proportion that female officers represent in the service.

It will be a better military service with more women, for the simple reason that women are better people, as every man knows, remembering his mother and giving his wife her due.

Another tradition that was recently broken was Selective Service, or the draft, as the method for raising military man-power. Conscription never made any sense. I am surprised that it lasted so long, but at last technology--combined with the tragedy of employing it in the Vietnam war--and President Nixon killed it.

It never would have been necessary if military men had been paid salaries commensurate with those for jobs in civil life requiring the same education and skill. Now this is being corrected, and the all-volunteer force, in the first year of trial, has proven an. unqualified success.

An unwilling, juvenile work force would have been inadequate for any organization or business. To trust the most important enterprise we have, our nation's security, to such a force was a dangerous, grave error, now fortunately corrected prior to national disaster.

There is another characteristic which has crept into our military system in the last twenty years and which comprises a present hazard, both to our profession and the security of our country. So-called intellectuals and "think tanks," people totally without military experience and qualification, have too often been allowed to select our weapons and dictate strategy and even tactics employed on the battlefield. That fatal practice grew up under McNamara and his Whiz Kids and still persists.

The military profession must insist, by every legitimate means, that weapons and tactics be under its cognizance and that it be heard by the decision-makers on strategy on the national level.

This is not a challenge to civilian control of the military. On the contrary, the military profession, to its everlasting credit, has been the strongest supporter and defender of civilian control, which is fundamental to our system of government.

Finally, military people are our greatest strategic resource. One thing we have learned from four wars in my lifetime is that we produce better military manpower than any other nation in the world. It is better educated and better qualified to operate effectively the highly technical weapons of today and in the future. It possesses greater dedication to the preservation of freedom than any other people, as attested most recently by 50,000 who gave their lives in Vietnam.

Our future military leaders must never forget that; they must see also that all others remember it. They must cherish and nourish our people resource as the greatest factor in our future security.

My modest hope is that by speaking up in the pages of the Air University Review I do more than pursue my avocation of watching the future careers of those who continue to practice my favorite profession, which is responsible, more than any other, for the security of our country.