Matthew Ridgway Quotes

No matter how sound a tactical plan may be, the chances of successful execution will be greatly increased if you have first secured the willing acceptance by commander responsible for execution of the missions you plan to assign them. Ensure that they receive notice of your decision and the principal details of your plan as approved in ample time to permit them and their subordinates to make their necessary reconnaissance and issue their orders.

Character is the bedrock on which the whole edifice of leadership rests. It is the prime element for which every profession, every corporation, every industry searches in evaluating a member of its organization. With it, the full worth of an individual can be developed. Without it--particularly in the military profession-failure in peace, disaster in war, or, at best, mediocrity in both will result.

There is, of course, a great deal of bad leadership as well as of good. It, too, deserves study so that its pitfalls may be avoided. But in general, I believe bad leadership is the result either of violation of basic principles, or the lack or failure to develop one or more of the qualities of good leadership. In any event, I want to speak now of the good type of military leadership with some specific reference later to combat leadership of large units the division, corps, and army. The chief ingredients of leadership, as I have known it to be exercised by those whose careers I have studied, or under whose command I was privileged to serve, are three. I call them the three C's: character, courage, and competence.

Only those who have disciplined themselves can exact disciplined performance from others. When the chips are down, when privation mounts and the casualty rate rises, when the crisis at hand, which commander, I ask, receives the better response? Is it the one who has failed to share the rough going with his troops, who is rarely seen in the zone of aimed fire, and who expects much and gives little? Or is it the one whose every thought is for the welfare of his men, consistent with the accomplishment of his mission; who does not ask them to do what he has not already done and stands ready to do again when necessary; who with his men has shared short rations, the physical discomforts and rigors of campaign, and will be found at the crises of action where the issues are to be decided?

Throughout my two years as Chief of Staff, I felt I was being called upon to tear down, rather than build up, the ultimately decisive element in a properly proportioned fighting force on which the world could rest its hope for maintaining the peace or, if the catastrophe of war came, for enforcing its will upon those who broke that peace.

I've seen some pretty damned bloody engagements myself. You don't pile bodies up in a wall at all. It reminds me of one marine who said to the sergeant, "Sergeant, you used the word 'hordes,' attacking in 'hordes.' How many platoons does it take to make a horde?" In other words, while the Chinese, and the North Koreans to an even greater extent, attacked with a fanaticism which was hard for us to understand attacks in the face of our superior firepower which no American commander would have countenanced for a moment the bodies still would be scattered according to their approach. You don't build a wall of bodies. Maybe you did in a medieval city when you were trying to breach a wall or something.

As commander of a division or smaller unit, there will rarely be more than one crisis, one really critical situation facing you at any one time. The commander belongs right at that spot, not at some rear command post. He should be there before the crisis erupts, if possible. If it is not possible, then he should get there aa soon as he can after it develops. Once there, then by personal observation of terrain, enemy fire, reactions, and attitudes of his own commanders on the spot—by his eyes, ears, brain, nose, and his sixth sense gets the best possible picture of what is happening and can best exercise hie troop leadership and the full authority of his command. He can start help of every kind to his hard-pressed subordinates. He can urge higher commander to provide additional fire support, artillery, air, other infantry weapons, and, in the future, perhaps, nuclear strikes.

It seems to me, Mr. President, that in this particular time that all of history points to the harsh fact that until we are much nearer this goal of a peaceful world to which you inspiringly lead, that we must maintain this Army in which you have such an abiding faith as a strong clement in the defense of this Nation. As I turn over my duties to the splendid officer who succeeds me, I have absolute confidence, Mr. President, that if ever our security or our liberty are threatened, that this magnificent Army of ours will valiantly play its ultimately decisive role in those defenses.

If, at this time, he is at some rear command post, he will have to rely on reports from others, and time will be lost, perhaps just those precious moments which spell the difference between success and failure. Notwithstanding the console capabilities of future television in combat, I still believe what I have said is true. In any event, keep tide time factor ever in mind. It is the one irretrievable, irretrievable, priceless element in war.

Physical fitness comes under competence, the third of my three basic ingredients of leadership. It plays a great part. My own earlier training at Fort Leavenworth, Fort Benning, Fort Sam Houston with the 2d Division, with the 33d Infantry in the Panama area, and with the airborne paid off in battle-first as a division, then as a corps, and, finally, as an army commander. Because of strenuous and unremitting physical training, I was able to keep up with the best of my troops in the hottest sec- tors and the toughest terrain and cli- mate. Let me mention briefly what I think the standards should be for commanders of large units. The division commander should have the physical endurance, stamina, and reserves of his best infantry battalion commanders, because that is where he belongs- with them a good part of the time; the corps commander, those of his infantry regimental commanders; and the army commander just about the same. And remember this, since no one can predict today when you may be thrown into combat, perhaps within hours of deplaning in an overseas theater-as happened to thousands in Korea, and as I have no doubt to many in Vietnam-you will have no time to get in shape. You must be in shape all the time.

While recognizing that there are many principles, or truths. Pertaining to the exercise of leadership, and while firmly believing that powers of leadership can be greatly increased in any individual through knowledge of these principles and practice in their application, I still think the variables of human nature combined with those of combat, and to a lesser degree with those in peacetime training, make the exercise of leadership far more of an art than science.

I publicly protested the adoption of the volunteer Army, now a demonstrated failure and perhaps a disaster. I publicly deplored the dismantling of Selective Service and the admission of women into our service academies. Every one of those actions is now looming as potentially detrimental to the esprit and effectiveness of our armed forces -- a blow at discipline, without which no military unit is worth its keep.

Well, we like to sign a check and say that the bill is paid, you see; then we realize that the payment's going to come later and be more painful still. We like to think that when we sign an agreement, the other party is going to keep it. We keep our part but the Russians have no intention of keeping it, none whatever. Duplicity, secrecy, and every form of deceit is in- grained in their working methods and their handling of peoples. They've always been that way when I say always, I mean about two or three hundred years at least.

There is another element in battlefield leadership which I want to mention and illustrate. It is a cardinal responsibility of a commander to foresee insofar as possible where and when crises affecting his command are likely to occur. It starts with his initial estimate of the situation—a continuing mental process from the moment of entering the combat zone until hie unit is pulled out of the line. Ask yourself these questions. What are the enemy capabilities? What shall I do, or what could I do, if he should exercise that one of his capabilities which would be most dangerous to me, or most likely to interfere with the accomplishment of my mission?

The military services deal harshly, as they should, with failure to carry out orders in battle. The commander present on the scene is entitled to full, instant, and enthusiastic execution by subordinates. Yet when faced with different situations from those anticipated, as well as in the transition from plans to orders, there sometimes comes the challenge to one's conscience, the compelling urge to op- pose foolhardy operations before it is too late, before the orders are issued and lives are needlessly thrown.