Waiting on Orders

 I'm reading a book about D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. I've read a lot of books by Ambrose over the years. I gave up on him due to the "plagiarism" scandal at the end of his life. I wasn't a fan of that. And I'm still not. BUT, I've been stunned (as my readers well know) by the magnitude of plagiarism taking hold in academic circles, see for instance Harvard's president, et al. I wonder if there is a study there somewhere. Regardless, Ambrose is a greater writer. More on that later. 

What I find interesting is his description of the landing at Omaha Beach. The first invasion he discusses is Utah, and for the most part that sounds rather staid. But boy, Omaha was a goat fuck. 

The Big Red One is slogging through. The Rangers are interspersed amongst them. The famous moment where the general says, "Rangers Lead the Way!" Not that the Big Red One needed that much help, but I'm sure it felt nice to say to the Rangers, get moving up there. 

Anyway, Ambrose quotes and tells the story of one Ranger LT who when he got to the beach, noticed that the soldiers who had survived the landing were sheltering and hunkering down on the shingle and not moving forward. He ran up to them and started to tell them to move forward. He organized them, gave them a mission, and they started to move. 

What this guy learned is that, for the most part, soldiers will not move unless given orders. Maybe, and he doesn't state it, the default state for humans is to hunker down. Training doesn't naturally take over in the absence of vision and direction. But once that vision and direction is provided in the form of orders, then training kicks in, and the soldiers move. He mentions this more than once. 

I can relate to this. 

This is me to a T. I will hunker until told what to do. I can't count the number of times I've seen something, then it's up to Lana or someone around me to say, "Go do such and such," and BOOM, I'm off. I would imagine I would hunker on the beach. The good news about me, and again, this appears to be what this LT is focused on, when given an assignment, I'm off. I might not be the most sua sponte mother fucker ever, but when I'm given orders and a mission, you can't ask for much better or faster. 

I guess the lesson for me is, be sure I'm giving orders to others, and in the absence of it from others above me . . . give myself the order. Allow orders to come from myself. Somethign to consider.