Success
You will be strongly tempted to change your orders. Don't do it until it
is clearly manifested that your first orders were radically wrong. For,
if you do, you will be again worried by doubts as to the efficacy of
your second orders.
Every time you change your orders without obvious reason you
weaken your authority and impair the confidence of your men.
Have the moral courage to stand by your order and see it through. Moral courage further demands that you assume the responsibility for your own acts. If your subordinates have loyally carried out your orders and the movement you directed is a failure the failure is yours, not theirs.
Yours would have been the honor had it been successful. Take the blame if it results in disaster. Don't try to shift it to a subordinate and make him the goat. That is a cowardly act. Furthermore, you will need moral courage to determine the fate of those under you. You will frequently be called upon for recommendations for promotion or demotion of officers and non-commissioned officers in your immediate command.
Keep clearly in mind your personal integrity and the duty you owe your country. Do not let yourself be deflected from a strict sense of justice by feelings of personal friendship.
If your own brother is your second lieutenant, and you find him unfit to hold his commission, eliminate him. If you don't your lack of moral courage may result in the loss of valuable lives.
THERE is something wrong about the man whose wife and children do not greet him affectionately on his homecoming. If, on the other hand, you are called upon for a recommendation concerning a man whom, for personal reasons, you thoroughly dislike, do not fail to do him full justice. Remember that your aim is the general good, not the satisfaction of an individual grudge.
I am taking it for granted that you have physical courage. I need not tell you how necessary that is. Courage is more than bravery.
Bravery is fearlessness - the absence of fear. The merest dolt may be brave, because he lacks the mentality to appreciate his danger; he doesn't know enough to be afraid.
Courage, however, is that firmness of spirit, that moral
backbone which, while fully appreciating the danger involved, nevertheless
goes on with the undertaking. Bravery is physical; courage is mental and
moral. You may be cold all over; your hands may tremble; your legs may
quake; your knees be ready to give way - that is fear.
If, nevertheless, you go forward; if, in spite of this physical defection you continue to lead your men against the enemy, you have courage.