What?s that about crossing the ?t?s and dotting the ?i?s?

DURING THE early years of Second World War when Germans were scoring victory after victory in Europe, Hitler diverted Field Marshal Rommel to Italy to oversee the operations in North Africa, which until then were being handled by the Italian Commanding General Graziani.

DURING THE early years of Second World War when Germans were scoring victory after victory in Europe, Hitler diverted Field Marshal Rommel to Italy to oversee the operations in North Africa, which until then were being handled by the Italian Commanding General Graziani. Immediately on reaching Rome, Rommel summoned his General Staff. While the latter were still briefing him about the military situation in Africa, the restless Rommel reached out to a wall mirror, exhaled hot moist air upon it hastily sketching the Mediterranean coastline with his finger. With the battle map ready, he rattled out his operational directives to his astonished staff! Astonished because they were about to embark upon a campaign sans the usual frills of elaborate written operational orders and voluminous supporting files layered with rolls of multicoloured maps, which had all this while enslaved them in operational planning. As to the outcome of such a rudimentarily disseminated plan, history bears testimony that it was a resounding success right from the capture of Tobruk and further eastward drive up to Alexandria.

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That was perhaps the wizardry of an unassuming military genius that existed over half a century ago. Today, the common perception amongst most men at arms is perhaps based upon the universally accepted aphorism that ‘pen is mightier than the sword’. Interestingly, though it may sound strange, but experience tells us that it is seldom the ‘sword’ (read weapon) but the ability to wield the ‘pen’ that decides the ‘soldiering worth’ of a military officer!

Much against common belief our army too seems smitten by voluminous paperwork. Be it matters of pure administrative routine, tactical planning or ‘appreciating’ a military situation, it is generally the ‘written expression’ that comes to the rescue of army officers.

The process handling the ‘pen’ starts very early and spans across the entire length of professional life of service officers. Whether it is the umpteen written exams that a service officer has to clear for successive promotions or competing with each other at in vying for ‘top grades’ on various courses, which to a great extent get influenced by the respective ‘written performance’ mostly at the cost of ground soldiering. Confirms an army officer, “ In today’s age of intense competition, mere proficiency in handling a weapon or a body of troops may not be sufficient in charting a career for the officer, but more importantly his ability to transcribe his soldierly skills on paper that provides him the much needed cutting edge over his peers”.

So enamoured is the army with ‘quality’ written work that it lays down elaborate details down to the crossing of ‘t’ and dotting the ‘i’. Incidentally all written work in the armed forces is categorised as ‘staff duties’ (SD) further sub-classified as ‘major’ SD (content) and minor SD (the layout, language quality and grammar)
In fact the Services’ are so particular about the latter that they have a whole pamphlet on ‘Service Writing’, which is considered next to ‘Bible’ by the SD buffs.

This ‘manual’ lays down all conceivable formats that an officer may require during the course of his military service, proverbially from ‘dust unto dust’.

Needless to say that any deviation is treated akin to ‘blasphemy’ particularly at the senior levels. Justifies the army that such stringent adherence to laid down formats is only to obviate any chances of ambiguity or confusion.

It is therefore not an unusual sight to chance upon a commander and his staff officer tucked inside a moving armoured vehicle (tank) or a dug- in command post, unmindful of the din of enemy gunfire, busy writing elaborate operational or logistics orders for the impending operation, (frequently consulting the dictionary/spell check, presumably to avoid spelling mistakes)! Or a harried artillery forward observation post officer perched precariously behind a rock ducking for cover from flying shrapnel busy sketching/shading a ‘fire plan’, with a ‘magazine’ of multi coloured crayon pencils sticking out of his battle dress, instead of grenades and ammo, as one would usually expect. At least that is how they are trained, tested and graded during the routine peacetime ‘war games’.

Though there are occasional outbursts of opposition against over emphasis on ‘paper work’, with rhetoric often being raised to arrest the tendency of creating ‘paper tigers’. Yet the latent urge for ‘babudom’ is far too strong to be overcome all so easily. So, at the end of the day, automation/ ‘computerism’ notwithstanding, old habits hardly ever die!