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- Feb 2, 2008
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Re-reading one of the classics from C.S. Forrester- "Lieutenant Hornblower" and ran into this paragraph (about Lt Bush who as the series progresses becomes Hornblower's loyal and trusted subordinate)
Truth from a novel- all of those observations are still true of military officers as well as being true in every other facet of life.
The Hornblower books are real classics and are a series that I would highly recommend - they provide for some great summer reading. (BTW they are all available electronically as well as in hard copy so you can get them on your "nook" or "kindle"). Enjoy!
“Bush was learning something about personalities. He would never be able to reduce the results of his observations to a tabular system, and it would never occur to him to do so, but he could learn without doing so; his experience and observations would blend with his native wit to govern his judgements, even if he were too self-conscious to philosophise over them.
He was aware that naval officers (he knew almost nothing of mankind on land) could be divided into active individuals and passive individuals, into those eager for responsibility and action, and into those content to wait until action was forced on them. Before that he had learned the simpler lesson that officers could be divided in to the efficient and the blunderers, and also into the intelligent and the stupid — this last division was nearly the same as the one immediately preceding, but not quite. There were officers who could be counted on to act quickly and correctly in an emergency. And those who could not — again the dividing line did not quite coincide with the preceding. And there were officers with discretion and officers with none, patient officers and impatient ones, officers with strong nerves and officers with weak nerves. In certain cases Bush’s estimates had to contend with his prejudices — he was liable to be suspicious of brains and of originality of thought and of eagerness for activity, especially because in the absence of some of the other desirable qualities these things might be actual nuisances.
The final and most striking difference Bush had observed during ten years of continuous warfare was that between the leaders and the led, but that again was a difference of which Bush was conscious without being able to express it in words, and especially not in words as succinct or as definite as these; but he was acutely aware of the difference even though he was not able to bring himself to define it.”
Truth from a novel- all of those observations are still true of military officers as well as being true in every other facet of life.
The Hornblower books are real classics and are a series that I would highly recommend - they provide for some great summer reading. (BTW they are all available electronically as well as in hard copy so you can get them on your "nook" or "kindle"). Enjoy!