YOU WON'T RISE TO THE OCCASION

For about 27 years my internet tagline has been “You won’t rise to the occasion—you will default to your level of training.”  Recently some readers or colleagues have asked about the origin of the motto, which has been widely quoted, and sometimes misattributed.

Here’s the lowdown:

In 1992 my brother and I published The Sixth Battle from Bantam, a complex, multi-layered techno-thriller set in South Africa and the Indian Ocean.  At sea, it pitted a U.S. Navy carrier group against post-Soviet Russian forces deploying carriers and amphibious units.  The scenario quickly caught the attention of wargamers, and occasionally I still hear from those folks.

One of the major players in the novel is the fictional Fighter Squadron 181 flying F-14 Tomcats from the fictional Forrestal class carrier USS Langley.  In one scene VF-181’s leading light, Lieutenant Commander Ozzie Ostrewski (“the world’s greatest Polish fighter pilot”) ponders the informal squadron doctrine on the bulkhead:

VF-181 Lessons to Live By

1.    You can only do what you can do.

2.    You won’t rise to the occasion—you will default to your level of training.

3.    There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

4.    A little subtle keying helps on radio calls.

5.    At 90 degrees of bank the lift slides off the wings.

6.    Use the sun but remember everyone else is there.

7.    Be King Kong on radar and have King Kong eyes.

8.    When the BBs are flying it’s time for your last best move.

9.    Think big—think basics—and cheat like hell.
10.  When planning a fight, see Rule Number One.

Number Two became the most-cited of the “ten commandments” and caught on as soon as I began citing it online.  I remembered several of the quotes from visiting Topgun and “Strike U” spaces at NAS Miramar, California, and NAS Fallon, Nevada, but added a couple from elsewhere.  Number Nine was cited at a 1980s Tailhook banquet by the late Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale of honored memory.

Time passed. Eventually other operators began picking up the “rise to the occasion” mantra, applying it in other venues such as elite forces and a Midwest fire department.  The online search turned up a Special Forces (Green Beret) manual that attributes the quote to me in what I will call soldierly terms: “WTSHTF (you can look it up) you will not rise to the occasion…”  But I do appreciate the credit line just the same!

Some outlets requested permission to quote me and some did not.  I always granted a request when asked because I reckoned that I do not hold a copyright on the quote, but I merely asked proper attribution.

Since then, the quote has been claimed by or attributed to others, including retired military officers and civilian firearms and martial arts trainers.  The other day I ran a Google search and found some of those usurpers with as few as eight hits and as many as 140.  My count runs somewhere north of 7,700.

However, with my curiosity aroused, I sought additional leads.  Internet discussions often cite an ancient Greek poet named Archilochus, without many specifics.  Allegedly he wrote, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

I’d never heard of Archilochus, and little is known about him, other than reputedly he was KIA fighting the Thasians or Naxos in the VII century BC.  The similarity between Archiolochus’ alleged version and “mine” is obvious.  But since the link between the poet and the statement seems tenuous, we’re back to the XX century.

Yet there are other examples across time.  In the IV or V Century AD the Roman military writer Publius Flavius Vegetius said, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.”  The translation: “He who desires peace should prepare for war.”  

The U.S. Marine Corps version runs, “The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war.”

Vegetius’ oft-cited statement can be interpreted in a broader sense, essentially “Peace through strength.”  It has much to do with deterrence, certainly well understood by the ultimate Cold Warrior, General Curtis LeMay.  His Strategic Air Command emblazoned its nuclear-armed bombers with the motto, “Peace is our profession.”

The subject of training for conflict is of course broad and deep, spanning an immense ocean of material compiled over millennia.  There are many levels of training, and thus many default levels.  Though I would never claim that my quotation is definitive, it has gained considerable notice in three decades.  If it prompts practitioners and operators to discuss the subject, that’s as much as I can expect. 

Stay vigilant, stay informed, and stay well trained.

PERSPECTIVE ON "THE GREATEST GENERATION"

I’m starting the new year with a lingering question I’ve wanted to ask reporter Tom Brokaw for decades. (Well, OK, two questions starting with why he didn't attend Joe Foss' memorial service, considering what Joe did for him for decades.)

Actually, I did post that question on Brokaw’s Facebook page but never got the courtesy of a response.

The burr beneath the proverbial saddle is Brokaw’s 1998 best seller, The Greatest Generation.  In the past twenty years the phrase has become so ingrained in the national psyche that it’s used reflexively, as in “an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus.”  That’s one of the dictionary definitions, and it fits “TGG” perfectly.

Anytime the World War II generation of Americans is referenced, you can set your calendar by the certainty of a TGG comment.  More often than not, it seems to come from people who are too young to have grown up around “War Two” veterans, which might make the situation even worse. Absent any depth of knowledge of the era, let alone the wider panorama of American history, the knee-jerk reaction is unlikely to be modified.

But to return to the main point:

Does Tom Brokaw REALLY believe The Greatest Generation hype?

It's totally unsupportable.  In fact, Joe often said, "We weren't the greatest--we just did what we had to do.”

More recently, Dutch Van Kirk, who dropped the Hiroshima atomic bomb that hastened the end of World War II, expressed an identical sentiment.

Meanwhile, I can count on one hand the number of  U.S. World War II vets who bought into TGG puffery, with fingers left over.

Some highly competent historians have weighed in, noting that in 1940-42 the world appeared teetering on the verge of Axis victory as Germany, Japan, and even Italy swept from one triumph to another.  But the trend abruptly reversed in ’42 with strategic Allied victories at Midway in the Pacific in June and at El Alamein in North Africa during October-November.  Furthermore, the German debacle at Stalingrad overlapped five months in 1942-43.  By then, the first U.S. offensive of the war, at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, approached its climax, forever ending Japanese prospects for the strategic offensive.

However grim things might have appeared at the time, with just a bit of perspective the reality is clear.  The Second World War was not going to be won by anyone except the Allies.  It says more of the military ability of the Axis that basically three nations (and Italy was on both sides!) tied the rest of the world in knots for six years.  Maybe that wasn't as evident early on, but astute Germans recognized the facts.  I knew the former Luftwaffe fighter chief, General Adolf Galland, who said that the war was lost when Hitler attacked Russia, let alone when he declared war on America six months later.

Briefly:

Depending on the timeframe, the Axis was outnumbered between 5 and 6-1 for most of the war. (The British Empire, Russia and China ferpetesake!)  By the time the Latin American piling-on ended in ’45, the disparity was more like 8-1.

Moreover, the Axis was out-produced by something approaching infinity.  Just two examples: the U.S. built 34 million tons of merchant shipping; Japan produced barely 4 million.  America rolled out more than 30,000 multi-engine bombers; Germany not quite 1,200.

The Axis had no way to conquer America--Germany and Japan couldn't even get here, even assuming adequate numbers.  Yet assuming Axis conquests over all of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, for Germany, Japan and their acolytes (such as Bulgaria and Thailand), occupying such a huge portion of Earth’s surface would have spread the fascists far too thin.  They simply could not have conquered “Fortress Amerika.”

Yet some analysts conclude that the U.S. would have been forced into economic servitude to the Axis, without access to foreign markets.

That dog don’t hunt.  For comparison, remember that the U.S. not only dealt with an existential threat for fifty years, but continued supporting the Soviet Union with vital sales—not least of which was food.  As a former wheat rancher, I can say that although our Pacific Northwest product went to Asian markets, much Midwest grain went to Russia, which managed to bungle the Ukrainian bread basket for decades.

Therefore, while facing the potential for thermonuclear incineration, old Uncle Sam propped up his bitterest enemy at the same time.  (One is reminded of the Marxist mantra: capitalists would sell the hangman the rope he would use on them.)

What we should remember, however, is that the War Two generation of Americans helped return dozens of countries to their rightful owners.  That fact is too often ignored.

So, to conclude: Who was the greatest generation?

It's absurd that anybody still argues the point.

IT WAS THE FOUNDERSwho, as Benjamin Franklin said in the delightful musical 1776, the nascent Republic overcame far greater odds than a kinder Providence would have ordained.  The colonies fought an eight-year war against the greatest empire on Earth, with the leaders facing the gallows if they failed.  Although we owe a tremendous debt to France (repaid at least twice), World War II doesn't even belong on the same page as the Revolution.

After that, TGG was the pioneers who trekked the Oregon Trail.  Long ago I transcribed my maternal great-great grandmother's 1852 journal.  She and thousands of others set out from Missourah walking 2,100 miles in a five-month race to beat winter in time to establish quarters in the Willamette Valley.

As frontier scout Kit Carson allegedly said, "The cowards never started and the weak died on the way."

Those people had HEART.

Before closing, I’d like to put in a word for my grandparents’ generation. Those were the Americans who dealt with The Great Depression as adults, and raised the World War II crop.

Anyone with the right contacts, feel free to copy to Mr. Brokaw.

NOVEMBER 11 A CENTURY LATER

This month’s entry is written by my brother John L. Tillman, Stanford graduate and Rhodes Scholar who contributes to almanacs and encyclopedia, often from memory.  Though nearly twice the length of my usual blogs, the subject warrants it.

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The "War to End All Wars" ended in armistice at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. On this date each year, Allied nations honor the service and sacrifices of all military veterans. France observes Armistice Day, the British Commonwealth Remembrance Day and the United States Veterans Day (Armistice Day before 1954). The celebration now commemorates veterans of all their countries' wars, but citizens should also reflect on the meaning of the Great War of 1914-18 in particular.

How World War I began and ended both merit remembrance. The lessons of its end have been applied both correctly and inappropriately in the century since the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. American General John Pershing wanted to fight on and force Germany to surrender unconditionally. The bloodied, impoverished, war-weary Western Allies preferred a quick end to hostilities, followed by a punitive peace against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The lessons of the war's start may have even more to teach great powers today. The international “July Crisis” began with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia on 28 June 1914. It culminated with the British declaration of war on Germany on 4 August. 

The conflict would never have gone global, and having done so, would have ended sooner, had national leaders made better decisions from before the war to its aftermath. All the major belligerent states blundered badly. That isn't purely hindsight. In each country, members of the public and government urged wiser courses.

The miscalculations were largely based upon wishful thinking. Each nation and alliance concluded that it could take advantage of the July Crisis to achieve all or some of its often overly ambitious war aims. 

When a Slav nationalist, Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, murdered Austro-Hungary’s imperial heir Ferdinand, Vienna with reason suspected that Belgrade was behind the assassination.  Thus, Austria-Hungary felt compelled to attack Serbia in retaliation for the outrage. It also coveted some Serbian territory. 

The global catastrophe thus began at 11:10 a.m. on 28 July when Austria declared war by telegram on Serbia, a month after the Archduke's murder. Austria shelled Belgrade the next day. Vienna calculated that it could beat Serbia before Russia could mass on their common border, or that Russia might not even join the fight.

The still-small war could have remained “some damned thing in the Balkans,” but Mother Russia felt compelled to back her Pan-Slavic protégé’ and fellow Orthodox “Little Brother” Serbia. Many in Russia knew that the Czarist empire wasn't ready for a modern European war, having lost to emergent Japan in 1905. Russia had previously promoted disarmament, since it lacked the funds and industry to buy or build the new weaponry adopted by its adversaries, especially Germany.

Russia, however, calculated that, with Austria-Hungary busy against Serbia, she stood a good chance of taking Slavic Galicia, present-day westernmost Ukraine, from the Dual Monarchy. Russia mobilized faster than expected, so Austria had to divert troops from its initial invasion of Serbia, which was defeated.

Germany decided to mobilize in response to Russia's moves. Relying on the prewar Schlieffen Plan, Berlin hoped to fight on the defensive against Russia, assumed to mobilize slowly, while swiftly defeating France in a sweeping right hook around Paris. Then western divisions would be quickly transferred by train across the Fatherland to block any Russian invasion of Prussia or German Polish territory, then invade the Motherland in order to acquire more territory and set up puppet states as buffers against the huge, but underdeveloped empire.

The Schleiffen Plan relied on France's aggressively invading its former territory of Alsace-Lorraine on the left bank of the Rhine, to recapture the provinces and avenge its humiliating loss to Prussia in 1870-71. With much of its army thus drawn east, the strong German right wing could sweep along the Channel Coast to encircle the capital and much of northern France, cutting off French forces in Alsace-Lorraine. 

The problem was that the maneuver required invading neutral Belgium, risking Britain's entry into the war over the flagrant breach of international law. German planners were willing to take the chance because they thought that Britain would get drawn in to aid France regardless, and that its small but professional army couldn't make much difference in a war of vast conscript armies.

Besides the alliance system and mobilization schedules, Germany's grand strategy might help explain the decision to violate Belgian neutrality. The global aspects of The Great War included German Weltpolitik strategy, envisioning not only a reordered Mitteleuropa under its control or that of its ally Austria, but a Mittelafrika. While Britain sought to unite its African colonies along a Cape-Cairo railway, Germany wanted to connect its East African (Tanganyika) and Southwest African colonies, which would interrupt the north-south route. Germany also hoped to appropriate the Belgian Congo and, ideally former French and Portuguese colonies. Conquering Belgium obviously would further the scheme. If Britain joined the war and was beaten, it could pressure traditional ally Portugal to hand over Angola and Mozambique to the victorious Kaiser. Defeating France not only promised occupation of its African colonies, but possibly of its rich iron ore deposits just west of Alsace-Lorraine. Thus, success in war might bring riches beyond the dreams of German avarice.

In mid-August Russia launched an offensive against East Prussia sooner than Germany expected, though the Kaiser's forces defeated the invasion. But not before Germany transferred troops intended to fight France eastward, where they arrived too late to help. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, the Schlieffen Plan failed. Both sides on the Western Front were soon mired in trench warfare, with mud from autumnal rains adding to the misery. 

The Great War introduced large numbers of submarines, tanks and powered aircraft to military operations. The first known dogfight occurred during the August 1914 Battle of Cer between Austria and Serbia, when an Austrian pilot pulled out a pistol to shoot at a Serbian pilot, who escaped. 

That month a millennium event occurred when airplanes supplanted cavalry’s traditional reconnaissance role.  Germany’s Rumpler Taubes—birdlike flying machines—provided vital information on Russian movements during the strategic Battle of Tannenberg, and simultaneously the Royal Flying Corps’ less primitive BE-2s warned of the developing threat to the British Expeditionary Force. 

Most belligerents failed to appreciate the advantage that modern weapons afforded the defense. Russia had experienced their effect against Japan in 1905, but, had its army learned the lesson of 20^th century firepower, the country couldn't afford quantities of machine guns and quick-firing artillery. German infantry was supported by more machine guns than France and Britain, but still fewer than would become common on both sides. Infantry tactics were scarcely advanced over 19^th century line of battle formations, despite far more lethal weaponry.

So, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and eventually Italy all could have stayed out of the war between Austria and Serbia, sparing the world squalid slaughter, famine, pestilence, revolution and societal collapse that took the lives of tens of millions, maimed millions more and impoverished great nations. But what if the United States had not come to the aid of the Western Allies?

The hideous casualties on the Somme and at Verdun in 1916 bled Britain and France almost to death. The French army mutinied in 1917. After Germany knocked Russia out of the war in 1917 and signed a treaty with the new Communist regime, troops were freed for offensives in the West and in support of Austria against Italy. If Germany, starved by the Royal Navy's blockade, didn't win decisively in 1918, then an armistice would be necessary. 

But Germany had made another error. Its leaders knew that unrestricted submarine warfare risked bringing America into the war. But they accepted the odds to try strangling Britain as its navy laid siege to Germany. President Woodrow Wilson didn't join the war even after a U-boat sank civilian liner Lusitania (secretly carrying ammo from America to Britain) in 1915. However, in 1917 Germany offered to help Mexico reclaim parts of the U.S. Southwest in order to keep America out of the European war. The “Zimmermann telegram” was intercepted and gave reelected (“He kept us out of war!”) Democrat Wilson a casus belli.

Knowing that the Yanks were coming Over There, the Allies held on, stopped Germany's spring offensive, and awaited the arrival of millions of green if eager doughboys, supported by the sailors of a respectable navy.

The human toll was massive, the result of war on an industrial scale.  Military deaths to all causes ran from 8.5 to 11 million; civilian losses might top 8 million including war-related disease and starvation.  The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920 remains somewhere between 40 to 100 million deaths. 

The rest is sad and terrible history. Germany fell to a conglomerate of French native and colonial forces, the British Commonwealth led by Australian shock troops, remnant Belgians, and hordes of Americans in giant divisions. 

At Versailles in 1919, Germany was punished severely, arguably leading to the rise of the Nazi Party. Austria-Hungary was broken up on the basis of nationalism. Russia descended into the dark night of Bolshevik barbarism.  The Yugoslav state so devoutly wished for by Princip (who died in prison) proved a bad idea and fell apart soon after the demise of the USSR. 

Another, even more terrible European world war followed in 1939, spreading globally. Then the long, costly Cold War, 1947-91, and hot wars within it. Then a new series of Balkan Wars late in the 20^thcentury. Then yet more war in no small part caused by France and Britain's divvying up the Ottoman Empire with little regard to natural geographical, linguistic, ethnic and religious boundaries. Just the opposite of what befell Austria-Hungary's constituent states. 

The world had a shot at being a better place in the 20^th and 21^st centuries had America stood in bed in 1917, and not gone Over There.  But U.S. financiers had enormous stakes in protecting loans to the Allies.  The War to End all Wars probably wouldn't have done so in any case, but our involvement may have guaranteed seemingly endless war since 11/11/18.