But, through no fault of their own, had been forced to lead lives that fairly paralyzed their efficiency when the strain of modern war came on them.

The routine elderly regular officer who knew nothing whatever of modern war was in most respects nearly as worthless as a raw recruit.

The positions and commands prescribed in the text-books were made into fetishes by some of these men, and treated as if they were the ends, instead of the not always important means by which the ends were to be achieved.

In the Cuban fighting, for instance, it would have been folly for me to have taken my place in the rear of the regiment, the canonical text-book position.

My business was to be where I could keep most command over the regiment, and, in a rough-and-tumble, scrambling fight in thick jungle, this had to depend upon the course of events, and usually meant that I had to be at the front.