Aside from the uncharacteristic botched attribution (the line quoted is from “The Young British Soldier” not “Chant Pagan”–though both are Kipling) this comment by John Ringo, inserted into his translation of a (generally favorable!) French article on close association with American forces in Afghanistan, is telling:
Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: ‘If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white/remember it’s ruin to run from a fight./So take open order, lie down, sit tight/And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. ‘In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.’ Indeed, virtually every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other ‘incident’, the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.
This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.
And in an afterward to his translation of the original article, Ringo goes on to say,
What is hard for most people to comprehend is that that attitude represented only the most elite units of the past. Current everyday conventional boring ‘leg infantry’ units exceed the PT levels and training levels of most Special Forces during the Vietnam War. They exceed both of those as well as IQ and educational levels of: Waffen SS, WWII Rangers, WWII Airborne and British ‘Commando’ units during WWII. Their per-unit combat-functionality is essentially unmeasurable because it has to be compared to something and there’s nothing comparable in industrial period combat history.
This group is so much better than ‘The Greatest Generation’ at war that WWII vets who really get a close look at how good these kids are stand in absolute awe.
My association with the current crop of American armed forces is second and third hand, but the boys (and they are largely still boys in many ways) I know from America’s Third World County who’ve “seen the bear” in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly fit the mold in upholding this standard. (Man, I’m getting old. I had some of these kids in children’s choirs… *heh*)
