The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Junghalli]

Oh come on, is a bunch of kludgy exposition really necessary? You have a division which is literally sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while their country is being invaded. Even if she did not know anything about the individual personalities of the command staff, it would hardly be out of line to shitcan the entire leadership for this fact alone, because she doesn't really have time to carefully sift through them for salvageable personnel while they make excuses and point fingers at each other.

If I were a business executive, I went to visit a factory which was supposed to be working on a rush job, and I found that they were all sitting around doing nothing while management held meetings, I'd be tempted to shitcan the entire management staff on the spot. If I stormed into the offices and demanded explanations and they all gave me that "I'm trying to make up something to say" look, I'd definitely shitcan them all on the spot, unless I had no one to replace them with.

Good point.

Still, in order to avoid reader misunderstandings, I think it might not be a bad idea to change that particular line somehow. Maybe just leave the guy time to finish his excuse and the General say it's bullshit and then fire him.

[GrayAnderson]

I don't see that as being mindless. I see it as being loyal to an oath. If, for example, it were myself marching off that bridge, I might have strident objections to doing so. But I'd given my oath to obey. The time to object was before I'd given my oath and signed my contract.

I, personally, see changing one's mind about obeying an order after taking an oath to be rather like changing one's mind about making a parachute jump 30 seconds after leaping out the door. As my grandfather was fond of saying, "You signed the contract, boy. Too late, too bad. If y' didn't like the contract, y' shouldn't've signed it." If that's a black/white division... *shrugs*

But I suspect this is a matter of personal belief and philosophy. If I willingly sign a contract, I believe I'm morally obligated to see it through, no matter what. If someone abuses my contract to hurt or otherwise abuse others... then I'd have to decide what my own morality says, then take appropriate action. Using Iraq as an example, I'd inform my commander, report to be arrested, testify that yes, I'm willfully disobeying orders, and plead guilty at my court-martial, then wait quietly to be sentenced.

After all, that too is mentioned as part of my contract. Indirectly, but still mentioned. That I accept their authority over me for the duration of my contract. Up to and including my execution at their hands, if they so wish - provided it's according to the literal wording of the contract.

That is, after all, why I'm so damn picky about signing contracts these days.

I'd find it hard to trust someone who signed a contract, then told me they couldn't honor it because of moral or philosophical doubts about what they're doing. They either should have brought those doubts forward during the negotiation of the contract, before it was signed; or calmly and quietly accept any contract penalties for not carrying through with the contract.

Being willing to die - or even to commit suicide - to affirm one's word is inviolate is a hard thing to do. And it's been abused all too often. But it works. Ask the Japanese.

(And boy, did I use the word "contract" a lot there...)

I suppose it's a matter of trust. If I can't trust you to carry on, regardless of doubts, can I trust you at all? I don't know. I honestly don't know. You may be an honorable man by your own morality, but can I trust you to be honorable by my morality? And if I can't trust you to do that, can I trust you in any other areas?

I don't know. I'd have to slowly get to know you, day by day, trying to find what you will and won't do. What your philosophy of life is, and how you react in certain situations. And that takes time. Often it takes a lifetime. And if you don't have that much time to get to know someone, if you're in a hurry or circumstances have forced your hand, simply holding a man to to the literal wording of his contract is a useful substitute, and keeps things moving along.

It's certainly useful in times of war...

Ed.

Ed,
I'd like to earnestly thank you for putting the concept in terms that make a whole lot of sense to me. Given that I got pulled through a light version of law school (one of my best friends used me as a study buddy...and I think in spite of him having the three years and me only the long phone calls talking about class on a given day, we were averaging the same number of practice questions right), the concept of a contract makes more sense to me than does an oath in some ways (particularly given how little oaths seem to count for anymore; at least with a contract, there's still an expectation, social and legal, that it will be offered).

It does explain a good deal of why I don't see myself joining the military (aside from the minor part about getting shot at...but under the right circumstances that could probably be worked through, and I know there are a lot of roles that don't even get within a light year of a real shooting battle in a term of service) in my lifetime if I can help it. Some of that has to do with the fact that I honestly feel I would be better placed working in an office dealing with reams of data (it's what I do right now...and bizarrely enough I enjoy that sort of thing) in an intelligence office. Given the choice of how I'd conduct government service were I to have an obligation to a term of it, I would prefer working for the CIA or for Defense. But a lot of it has to do with those stop-loss clauses and whatnot that came into play over the last 3-5 years. Basically, there are issues and/or reservations I have with substantial parts of the contract that make it a no-go.

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As to how an author should write...I tend to say write well, and if you're going over peoples' heads work with that. But write as close to what you're most comfortable writing in as you can or the quality will usually suffer. A while back someone suggested I should write a bit for the story and see if it was liked; while I'll try to slot something up, the problem is that I write dryly and I know I write dryly. Think "Ciaphas Cain's History Textbook" if you want an idea of the least dry I've managed.

-------------------------

And I like that idea of calling it bullshit. Cutting off mid-sentence has the feeling of "Why haven't we taken that hill?" "Because there are 50,000 armed men on it and we're out of ammo." "That's no excuse." Sometimes there is a good reason, or even a passable excuse (I'm sure Patton wanted his men in Berlin by Christmas, but the supply train did have a limit).

[bcoogler]

It's not like this asinine hypothetical situation mentioned earlier where you would dismiss an otherwise desirable job candidate because he doesn't play this stupid "how do you answer an idiotic and impossible request" game the way you want him to.

The *question* was hypothetical, the situation was not. If you are unable or unwilling to play the interview game, you don't get hired.

Do qualified people get turned away because they didn't know the right way to answer a seemingly off the wall question? Oh yes, it happens all the time. I'm not saying it's right, just that this goes on in large US corporations.

Then the executives get to throw up their hands and say, "We just can't find anyone qualified," use that as an affirmation of their outsourcing/off-shoring plans, and reward themselves a golden parachute bonus for all their hard work.

[Baughn]

It's not directly related to this discussion (since it doesn't cover humans), but in the interest of lightening it up a bit, I'm going to switch the subject.

Thus: Would perfectly rational, perfectly selfish people be willing to fight in defence of their nation? Not their own homes, their nation? Assume, further, that only a tiny percentage of the population is actually needed for a successful defence, and those people will all die; however, if nobody defends, they all die anyway.

It's an interesting question. Logically, everyone will want someone else to go defend; no matter that you'd die if nobody helps defend, if you help you die anyway, and at least you'd live a little longer if you run away.

There's also a good answer to this. I'm not going to give it away (yet), but I will at least tell you that, yes, there is a solution. Remember, these people aren't humans; they may be posthumans. You may assume arbitrarily advanced technology, but for the sake of avoiding annoying non-answers, none of it is directly applicable to warfare; they've got to fight with our weapons.

[R011]

Still, in order to avoid reader misunderstandings, I think it might not be a bad idea to change that particular line somehow. Maybe just leave the guy time to finish his excuse and the General say it's bullshit and then fire him.

I disagree. Part of the point is to introduce the General as decisive, ruthless, and most importantly, kinetic. She isn't nurturing and she isn't nice. If you don't like her, she don't care. That unfortunate and ill-prepared officer just got a taste of what's going to happen to the Myanmar forces. I suspect we'll see her getting as inside their OODA loop as she did with Colonel Useless.

[Darth Wong]

It's not like this asinine hypothetical situation mentioned earlier where you would dismiss an otherwise desirable job candidate because he doesn't play this stupid "how do you answer an idiotic and impossible request" game the way you want him to.

The *question* was hypothetical, the situation was not. If you are unable or unwilling to play the interview game, you don't get hired.

I'm quite aware of that. However, the point I'm making is that the "game" is stupid because it has little bearing on the applicant's performance. If anything, your skill at playing this game indicates your skill at bullshitting and playing politics, not your skill at doing a practical job.

[Junghalli]

Thus: Would perfectly rational, perfectly selfish people be willing to fight in defence of their nation? Not their own homes, their nation? Assume, further, that only a tiny percentage of the population is actually needed for a successful defence, and those people will all die; however, if nobody defends, they all die anyway.

Depends: what is their goal system?

Assuming a goal system consistent with a naturally evolved creature such as ourselves (survive and pass on your genes), yes, they would, because of kin selection. They might die but their offspring, siblings, and others who have their genes would live to pass them on. The people with many offspring and siblings would probably be most willing to fight, while those with no offspring or siblings would be least willing.

I disagree. Part of the point is to introduce the General as decisive, ruthless, and most importantly, kinetic. She isn't nurturing and she isn't nice. If you don't like her, she don't care. That unfortunate and ill-prepared officer just got a taste of what's going to happen to the Myanmar forces. I suspect we'll see her getting as inside their OODA loop as she did with Colonel Useless.

There's making somebody look decisive and ruthless and then there's making them look like an idiot. Punishing people for saying things you don't want to hear fits firmly into the latter category, and the way the scene is written it looks like she might have done exactly that. I still thinking changing the line makes the scene more effective, not less.

[Baughn]

Thus: Would perfectly rational, perfectly selfish people be willing to fight in defence of their nation? Not their own homes, their nation? Assume, further, that only a tiny percentage of the population is actually needed for a successful defence, and those people will all die; however, if nobody defends, they all die anyway.

Depends: what is their goal system?

Assuming a goal system consistent with a naturally evolved creature such as ourselves (survive and pass on your genes), yes, they would, because of kin selection. They might die but their offspring, siblings, and others who have their genes would live to pass them on. The people with many offspring and siblings would probably be most willing to fight, while those with no offspring or siblings would be least willing.

Nope, no cheating. Their goal system is perfectly selfish; they care only about themselves, not kin, except inasmuch as their kin may be useful in some manner.

There's still a solution, even in this worst-case scenario.. actually, the solution sort of explains why we aren't perfectly selfish even in the absence of kin selection, even though our genes are.

[Junghalli]

Nope, no cheating. Their goal system is perfectly selfish; they care only about themselves, not kin, except inasmuch as their kin may be useful in some manner.

In which case to them dying in service of the group vs. dying not in service of the group should be a null choice, as it ends up the same way for them.

From a perfectly selfish viewpoint, in this scenario, the rational thing to do would be to seek some means of escape.

Of course, realistically combat doesn't equal a 100% chance of dying (not if you have any chance of actually winning anyway). So the logical thing would be for them to draw lots to determine which of them will go to fight and then force the ones chosen to the frontline, perhaps with tamper-resistant bombs strapped to their necks that will be used to blow their heads off if they disobey orders (or something along those lines). The chosen ones will obey because a high chance of death in combat beats certain death if they disobey. This might actually work with the 100% fatality idea, if we assume that their goal system is to survive as long as possible (they'll live marginally longer if they're killed in battle).

[Baughn]

Bingo!

Actually, the correct solution would be to, in advance, rewire your goal system so you'll obey the outcome of the lottery. At the time you do that it's a small risk, and once the result of the lottery is known you'll want to follow it.

Which, of course, is what evolution did. Kinda neat, when you think about it.

[Simon_Jester]

It goes without saying that such knowledge is about three levels beyond what the typical reader of this story could be expected to know.

Stuart had the choice of writing this story with this level of knowledge implicit for the reader, but he did not. We aren't expected to know that Petraeus likes his steaks medium-rare with a side of spicy mustard; likewise, this level of awareness of force structure within NW Thailand is not (or, at least, shouldn't be) relevant to the story.

I picked up some of it. I know Thailand is a small country with a small army; I could tell that Asanee was deliberately being a bitch to create a reputation as someone who will ruthlessly judge you on results; I assumed that Asanee was in fact competent and not a total idiot. From that, I could put together at least the outlines of what Stuart said.

And I have no military experience and know virtually nothing about Thailand. So I don't think Stuart was being unreasonable in leaving that as the subtext.
_________

That's an asinine attitude, tantamount to saying that it's better to lie to one's superiors rather than give them an unpleasant truth.

Thing is, with a competent superior, it is rare that they will tell you to do something that you flat out categorically can't do, even in theory. They're not telling you to flap your arms and fly, or make the enemy general's head explode with your mind; they're telling you to get information on the enemy's positions, to move a (nominally mobile) army unit, to put out patrols.

Those are things you can do in principle, even if for some reason you have not done them, or if it would be too difficult to do them. So the logical response is to make sure the superior understands roughly what you will have to do and how long it will take you in order to do whatever they just told you to do. Thus:

"Take that hill."
"We can't do that."
is an example of how not to do it.

"Take that hill."
"We can't do that; they're dug in and they have mortars zeroed in on all our angles of approach."
is better, but still bad. Firstly, it is not your decision whether the cost of taking the hill is worth it. Second and more important, it means that you are ruling out the possibility of taking the hill in some other way, which is what you ought to be trying to figure out how to do.

All you've done is identify the problem; you're not analyzing it in search of a solution.

"Take that hill."
"I'll need to wait for nightfall, and I'll need at least half the division's artillery in support."
is a much better answer, even if you know damn well you aren't going to get what you want. By focusing on the cost of solving the problem, you allow your superior to make an informed decision about whether or not it's worth taking the hill.

"Take that hill."
"They're dug in and they have mortars zeroed on all our angles of approach; I need some time to come up with a plan"
is also a much better answer. You don't know how to do it, but you haven't ruled out the possibility of finding out.
_________

The correct answer is some variation of "I can attempt to do that, sir, however...."

Whether or not it wasn't feasible in his eyes, he should not have said "I can't." He should have said "I can attempt to, however...." Saying "I can't" is an explicit indication of inability to follow orders and an implicit indication that you've given up even attempting to follow those orders. Both are reasons to shitcan an obvious incompetent.

That is true only in an environment where everyone is (nominally) trained to think in those terms, where "I can't" is considered a forbidden phrase and replaced by "I can attempt to do that, but..."

In a normal civilian environment that isn't true. Ask a carpenter to build you a ladder to the moon and he will (rightly) tell you that he can't do that. He can't, for several reasons, and you ought to know it before you even asked.

Whether it's true in the Thai military is not something I'm qualified to comment on.

[Vehrec]

That's an asinine attitude, tantamount to saying that it's better to lie to one's superiors rather than give them an unpleasant truth.

Thing is, with a competent superior, it is rare that they will tell you to do something that you flat out categorically can't do, even in theory. They're not telling you to flap your arms and fly, or make the enemy general's head explode with your mind; they're telling you to get information on the enemy's positions, to move a (nominally mobile) army unit, to put out patrols.

Those are things you can do in principle, even if for some reason you have not done them, or if it would be too difficult to do them. So the logical response is to make sure the superior understands roughly what you will have to do and how long it will take you in order to do whatever they just told you to do.

This wasn't an open ended order-there were time limits that might have made it genuinely impossible to accomplish. Furthermore, having just arrived on the scene, the general might be lacking some crucial piece of information such as all the men being dead drunk or a sudden shortage of boots. Genuine reasons why the force might be unable to move, albeit separate grounds for dismissal. Letting people tie their own noose is generally an efficient management tactic for purging an organization, but it requires a bit more set up than we see here.

[R011]

There's making somebody look decisive and ruthless and then there's making them look like an idiot. Punishing people for saying things you don't want to hear fits firmly into the latter category, and the way the scene is written it looks like she might have done exactly that. I still thinking changing the line makes the scene more effective, not less.

Firslty, you missed the most important point - kinetic. Things need to start moving and start now.

Secondly, the reason she didn't want to hear hat answer is because it starts with failure and tried to excuse it.

Any answer that starts "I can't" is flat-out evidence that the person involved is wrong for this job, if for no other reason than he's just seen what happens when people give the General wrong answers. This individual does not have the mental flexibility to keep from being fired within a few minutes of meeting the new boss. This does not speak well of his chances in combat.

As for the General being unreasonable, we saw what happens when people give her the right kind of answers. The mayor gets her approval by starting with a can-do attitude, not by promising the moon or trying to make excuses. I have no doubt that her new staff, mostly her hand-picked people, will find themselves in some kind of trouble in a later chapter and then we'll see how she reacts.

[R011]

That is true only in an environment where everyone is (nominally) trained to think in those terms, where "I can't" is considered a forbidden phrase and replaced by "I can attempt to do that, but..." .

Asanee just changed his environment and he either didn't pick up on it, or didn't care. For that matter, it seems the Myanmarese Army had just done the same to these guys, and they started floundering. Some folks here seem to have forgotten that last.

[Junghalli]

Firslty, you missed the most important point - kinetic. Things need to start moving and start now.

And this means "it's impossible" can't possibly be a valid answer?

Secondly, the reason she didn't want to hear hat answer is because it starts with failure and tried to excuse it.

This sounds like style-over-substance pap; making the way he says things super-important. "It's impossible" = starts with failure and tries to excuse it = grounds for dismissal when for all we know he was about to say "it's impossible because we don't have the fuel" or something like that. You're basically saying it's valid to fire a guy for saying things in a way that sounds not hoo-rah enough, even if for all you know he was making a perfectly valid point. I don't buy it. That's a terrible precedent to set: it encourages a culture of yes-manning where your superiors are afraid to tell you things you don't want to hear.

Let me make my position perfectly clear, just to prevent any misunderstandings. I am not saying she was wrong to discipline the man if she had actual reason to believe he was slacking off, and I'm not saying she didn't have reason to think so. My problem is with this idea that the phrasing the guy used is in itself grounds for dismissal because for some reason you're supposed to tap-dance around telling your superior something they want can't be done, even if it were true. I find that idea counterproductive and frankly assinine, like you're supposed to care more about soothing the boss's pride than giving them a straight answer. It strikes me as an attitude that belongs better in a Dilbert cartoon than in a well-run organization.

Any answer that starts "I can't" is flat-out evidence that the person involved is wrong for this job, if for no other reason than he's just seen what happens when people give the General wrong answers. This individual does not have the mental flexibility to keep from being fired within a few minutes of meeting the new boss. This does not speak well of his chances in combat.

Not really, because what he's just seen is what happens to people who give the General answers that indicate incompetence. Answering an order with "impossible" does not in itself indicate incompetence, unless there were other factors we were supposed to read between the lines, such as the General having enough knowledge about the situation to realize right off the bat he was exagerrating.

[Simon_Jester]

This wasn't an open ended order-there were time limits that might have made it genuinely impossible to accomplish. Furthermore, having just arrived on the scene, the general might be lacking some crucial piece of information such as all the men being dead drunk or a sudden shortage of boots. Genuine reasons why the force might be unable to move, albeit separate grounds for dismissal. Letting people tie their own noose is generally an efficient management tactic for purging an organization, but it requires a bit more set up than we see here.

LeMay's quote applies here, I think. In the face of an overwhelming national emergency, people who are sitting around doing nothing while the enemy marches into the country don't have the right to enough time to tie their own noose. It may be that the commander of First Regiment is "unfortunate" rather than "incompetent," but the importance of solving the immediate crisis trumps the importance of finding out which. Unless Asanee has reason to believe that the colonel can solve whatever problem is stopping him from moving his regiment, kicking him out and replacing him is the right thing to do.

And, again, there's a good chance that Asanee knows this officer well enough to have a pretty good idea in advance which he is. There can't be that many active regimental commanders in an army the size of Thailand's.

On the other hand, I do partially agree, because I object to the idea that the phrasing alone is evidence that he is incompetent. His answer can only be judged "wrong" when he's had a chance to actually give his answer. The format of his answer can be judged faster than that, and it's a strike against him, but it isn't three strikes by itself. If the regiment has no fuel because the resupply columns haven't caught up, then "we can't move, we only just got" is the plain truth, and the colonel shouldn't be afraid to say it.

Nor (and this is important) should his subordinates be afraid to tell his replacement... which they will.
__________

It's not directly related to this discussion (since it doesn't cover humans), but in the interest of lightening it up a bit, I'm going to switch the subject.

Thus: Would perfectly rational, perfectly selfish people be willing to fight in defence of their nation? Not their own homes, their nation? Assume, further, that only a tiny percentage of the population is actually needed for a successful defence, and those people will all die; however, if nobody defends, they all die anyway.

That last bit is the tricky part- there are virtually no cases of anyone being invaded by an enemy who will kill everyone. A large group of perfectly rational, perfectly selfish people would normally surrender, because the surrender terms are far less likely to get you killed, personally, than fighting in a war is.
________

I disagree. Part of the point is to introduce the General as decisive, ruthless, and most importantly, kinetic. She isn't nurturing and she isn't nice. If you don't like her, she don't care. That unfortunate and ill-prepared officer just got a taste of what's going to happen to the Myanmar forces. I suspect we'll see her getting as inside their OODA loop as she did with Colonel Useless.

Since I really enjoy reading such scenes, I hope so.

[bcoogler]

Any answer that starts "I can't" is flat-out evidence that the person involved is wrong for this job[....]

Oh I don't know if that's always true...

Boss: Why did the mainframe crash?
Sys Admin: I can't...
Boss: You're fired!
Sys Admin: ...answer that until the system finishes its reboot and we have time to review the crash dump file, about 30 minutes for a preliminary analysis.

[Samuel]

Than say
"We will know in 30 minutes."

[Junghalli]

What about something like this?

"First Regiment. How quickly can we get it on the road east? I want it up in Chong Sadao by dusk."

"We can't do it, we've only just moved into [Place Name], to prepare to move again would require…."

"No more than three hours, unless you have no fuel or every vehicle you have is broken. I happen to know this is not the case. You're relieved of command. Report to Supreme Command Headquarters for reassignment." She looked around at her team. "Colonel Thawat, take over command of First of Ninth and get it on the road to Chong Sadao by noon. I want information on enemy dispositions and operations, not an inflated condom drawn on a map "

OK, it's probably not perfect, but the point is it's not hard to change the wording to eliminate this whole mess.

[erik_t]

Than say
"We will know in 30 minutes."

This is intense focus on phrasing. You're aware of that, right? You'd be willing to fire someone depending on the phrasing, even if after literally 30 seconds they'd have told you exactly the same thing?

This tangent is making me wonder more and more how many participants have ever actually held a skilled-labor job, and how many of those who have held such a job should have.

[Questor]

Than say
"We will know in 30 minutes."

This is intense focus on phrasing. You're aware of that, right? You'd be willing to fire someone depending on the phrasing, even if after literally 30 seconds they'd have told you exactly the same thing?

It is an intense focus on phrasing, but there's also a little psychology in it as well. From a very young age, my parents (mostly my father) trained me that to be successful in verbal communication, you have to hold focus. I didn't understand the reasons until later, but one of the lessons I got from my father is that a lot of people stop listening after hearing the word can't. I almost instinctively avoid using the word when dealing with people outside of my general specialty area, and do avoid it with my superiors..

If your audience has assumed that you can't do the job, they may stop listening, which seems to be what happened here. No matter if the officer had a good reason or not, his audience had stopped listening, which WAS his problem if not his fault. Snap decisions can be both an advantage and a flaw, and I don't think we've seen enough of the general to know if it is or not.

I'm not saying that it would be a firing offense in my field, but I would think that there is a lot less room for error in an active military operation.

Also, I could see Patton doing almost exactly the same thing, and I think parts of this scene may be lifted from when he took command after Kasserine Pass. I am sure similar things were depicted in the movie in the scene where he arrived at the II Corps HQ. Could this general have some of the same character traits that make Patton's actions believable, if not necessarily wise (making no determinations on that)?

[Junghalli]

If your audience has assumed that you can't do the job, they may stop listening, which seems to be what happened here. No matter if the officer had a good reason or not, his audience had stopped listening, which WAS his problem if not his fault.

That seems to me to be much more a problem with the listener than a problem with the speaker. It's not the speaker's fault if the listener is intellectually lazy and just tunes out what he's hearing after hearing a word he doesn't like. That kind of attitude strikes me as a terrible quality in a military commander (or anybody with any real responsibility, for that matter).

Of course, in the real world things that are "the boss's problem" often become the subordinate's problem because the boss is, well, the boss. He has power over you and you often aren't really in a position to do anything about his personality problems, so you often have little choice but to accomodate them. So in that respect your approach is sound. The fact that such tap-dancing is necessary probably wouldn't exactly reflect well on the boss though if you ask me.

[Simon_Jester]

Than say
"We will know in 30 minutes."

But why the hell should it make a difference whether he says "we can't know for thirty minutes" or "we will know in thirty minutes?" They're both true. Neither is proof of some kind of total incompetence, since they both indicate that the tech is in fact doing their job in the same way.

In any normal situation (including a normal military situation), firing someone because they began their sentence "wrong" would be absurd and a sign of incompetence in the senior officer, not the junior. Only in a desperate case like this is it at all justifiable.
_________

Also, I could see Patton doing almost exactly the same thing, and I think parts of this scene may be lifted from when he took command after Kasserine Pass. I am sure similar things were depicted in the movie in the scene where he arrived at the II Corps HQ. Could this general have some of the same character traits that make Patton's actions believable, if not necessarily wise (making no determinations on that)?

Stuart consciously modeled the scene on General Matthew "Iron Tits" Ridgeway's takeover in Korea. At the time, UN (largely US) forces were being hammered down the peninsula by overwhelming numbers of Chinese troops; the situation was about as bad as what Asanee faces here.

Come to think of it, it's quite possible that Asanee herself was consciously modeling her actions on Ridgeway's, in character, if you will.
_________

That seems to me to be much more a problem with the listener than a problem with the speaker. It's not the speaker's fault if the listener is intellectually lazy and just tunes out what he's hearing after hearing a word he doesn't like. That kind of attitude strikes me as a terrible quality in a military commander (or anybody with any real responsibility, for that matter).

The flip side of this is that when everyone does something bad (in this case, tuning out everything after the word "can't"), a competent person has to be able to deal with it. If it's just one boss, or if it's only the clearly incompetent bosses who have that flaw, then we should judge the boss harshly. But when practically all managers (including some damn good ones) have the flaw, then it's as much your fault for failing to acknowledge it as it is theirs for having it.

By analogy: if my boss is color-blind, and I'm setting up a PowerPoint presentation for him, and I use lots of colors to distinguish different objects on a chart, I screwed up. If I get chewed out for it, that's understandable, because in this case my job was to convey information to my boss and I did it wrong because I didn't take my boss's limitations into account.

[Darth Wong]

Precisely. Any stupid rule like "any sentence which starts with "I can't" proves your incompetence" is clearly created by someone who is not a thinker by nature. It literally attacks the way you say it rather than what you say, which is a very common mental deficiency among non-thinkers. Non-thinkers love these sort of very simple rules because they require so little mental effort to implement.

Having said that, as noted earlier, this particular officer in the story was marching into an office where everybody was guilty until proven innocent for other reasons already, so I don't know that what she did was necessarily unreasonable.

[Setzer]

I'm sure we've all read time and time again that in war, a bad decision right away is better then no decision at all. She might not have dealt with their dismissal in the best possible manner, but it got them shocked out of their malaise. It served its purpose when it needed to.