It was not true that he wrote memorandums praising himself and recommending that his authority be enhanced to include all combat operations; he wrote memoranda.
And the prose in the memoranda of other officers was always turgid, stilted, or ambiguous.
The errors of others were inevitably deplorable.
Regulations were stringent, and his data never was obtained from a reliable source, but always were obtained. General Peckem was frequently constrained.
Things were often incumbent upon him, and he frequently acted with greatest reluctance. It never escaped his memory that neither black nor white was a color, and he never used verbal when he meant oral.
He could quote glibly from Plato, Nietzsche, Montaigne, Theodore Roosevelt, the Marquis de Sade and Warren G. Harding.
A virgin audience like Colonel Scheisskopf was grist for General Peckem’s mill, a stimulating opportunity to throw open his whole dazzling erudite treasure house of puns, wisecracks, slanders, homilies, anecdotes, proverbs, epigrams, apophthegms, bon mots and other pungent sayings.
He beamed urbanely as he began orienting Colonel Scheisskopf to his new surroundings.
‘My only fault,’ he observed with practiced good humor, watching for the effect of his words, ‘is that I have no faults.’
Colonel Scheisskopf didn’t laugh, and General Peckem was stunned.
A heavy doubt crushed his enthusiasm.
He had just opened with one of his most trusted paradoxes, and he was positively alarmed that not the slightest flicker of acknowledgment had moved across that impervious face, which began to remind him suddenly, in hue and texture, of an unused soap eraser.
Perhaps Colonel Scheisskopf was tired, General Peckem granted to himself charitably; he had come a long way, and everything was unfamiliar.
General Peckem’s attitude toward all the personnel in his command, officers and enlisted men, was marked by the same easy spirit of tolerance and permissiveness.
He mentioned often that if the people who worked for him met him halfway, he would meet them more than halfway, with the result, as he always added with an astute chuckle, that there was never any meeting of the minds at all.
General Peckem thought of himself as aesthetic and intellectual.
When people disagreed with him, he urged them to be objective.
And it was indeed an objective Peckem who gazed at Colonel Scheisskopf encouragingly and resumed his indoctrination with an attitude of magnanimous forgiveness.
‘You’ve come to us just in time, Scheisskopf.
The summer offensive has petered out, thanks to the incompetent leadership with which we supply our troops, and I have a crying need for a tough, experienced, competent officer like you to help produce the memoranda upon which we rely so heavily to let people know how good we are and how much work we’re turning out. I hope you are a prolific writer.’
‘I don’t know anything about writing,’ Colonel Scheisskopf retorted sullenly.
‘Well, don’t let that trouble you,’ General Peckem continued with a careless flick of his wrist.
‘Just pass the work I assign you along to somebody else and trust to luck.
We call that delegation of responsibility.
Somewhere down near the lowest level of this co-ordinated organization I run are people who do get the work done when it reaches them, and everything manages to run along smoothly without too much effort on my part.
I suppose that’s because I am a good executive.
Nothing we do in this large department of ours is really very important, and there’s never any rush.
On the other hand, it is important that we let people know we do a great deal of it.
Let me know if you find yourself shorthanded.
I’ve already put in a requisition for two majors, four captains and sixteen lieutenants to give you a hand.
While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it.
Don’t you agree?’
‘What about the parades?’ Colonel Scheisskopf broke in.
‘What parades?’ inquired General Peckem with a feeling that his polish just wasn’t getting across.
‘Won’t I be able to conduct parades every Sunday afternoon?’ Colonel Scheisskopf demanded petulantly.
‘No.
Of course not.
What ever gave you that idea?’
‘But they said I could.’
‘Who said you could?’
‘The officers who sent me overseas.
They told me I’d be able to march the men around in parades all I wanted to.’
‘They lied to you.’
‘That wasn’t fair, sir.’
‘I’m sorry, Scheisskopf.
I’m willing to do everything I can to make you happy here, but parades are out of the question.
We don’t have enough men in our own organization to make up much of a parade, and the combat units would rise up in open rebellion if we tried to make them march.
I’m afraid you’ll just have to hold back awhile until we get control.
Then you can do what you want with the men.’
‘What about my wife?’ Colonel Scheisskopf demanded with disgruntled suspicion.