Good afternoon friends Essay

The theme of Vicki L. Sears â€Å"Grace† can be seen in the relationship that develops between two of the characters, Billie Jim and Paul. Billie is an orphan who gets along with his sister and is adopted by Paul and his wife. Billie displays a desire to trust and accept their new parents while sister remains suspicious. Vickie Sears illustrate that although children suffer abuse and neglect, there is hope that they can learn to trust and build self-esteem. Billie Jim is a silent child who relies on his sister to protect him. Paul and his wife come to get them but Billie is hiding in a tree to escape from some of the bigger boys. His sister steps in and fights the older boys to get Billie down. She describes him as a â€Å"sissy†. Billie has to use the bathroom, but instead of asking their new parents he pinches his sister. Paul takes him to the restroom and his sisters concern gives us an understanding into prior abuse and possible reasons for Billie Jim’s reserved behavior. Although Paul would never hurt Billie Jim intentionally at the  end of the story he does. His death not only means an end to their relationship, but also an end to their secure home and protection. Billie loses the starring role along with the friend he has made, and is back into his uncertain life led by corrupt adults. â€Å"The Lesson† by Toni Cade Bambara is when Toni attended college and come of age as a writer. Bambara was at the head of radical politics, the feminist movement, and African American culture in Harlem when it was the 60’s. Her writing uncovers the differences forced on  African Americans of that time which America avoided and could not interfere. The story is a window for the reader into Bambara’s reality as much as it is a lesson for the immature woman Sylvia the main character. â€Å"The Lesson† is a first person narrative told by a young, poor, black girl growing up in Harlem in an undetermined time period known as â€Å"Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish, Sugar and I were the only ones just right†. Going by the prices some can accept it was sometime in the early seventies. The story is about a trip started by a local woman, who is the only educated person in the neighborhood and has taken it upon herself to uncover the unthankful children of the neighborhood to the world outside of their worried community. The last stop is FAO Schwartz in Manhattan, where the toys of white children cost more than all of the children’s household yearly incomes combined and the lesson is almost lost on the children. The story closes by making plans to spend the left over cab fare change they stole from Miss Moore. At the last second Sylvia turns on her friend and goes off alone to think of the events of the day. The story’s theme focuses on education and the need for education as the results of knowledge. It proves how learning can lead to grief but that the grief is necessary for helpful change. The author also studies different types of pride and purposes of leadership and the various ways people show respect or disrespect for each other. Underlying the entire story is the concept of economic difference between whites and blacks in the United States.

Leadership In The Military

There is surely no more talent nor more hope for the future than right here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade places with you, but at the same time, looking at all of you I am supremely confident that here among you sit the future great captains of our military and that we can all be very confident about tomorrow. And I am convinced that if he were alive today, Gen. Marshall would be right here, for there is nothing that that great soldier loved more than to talk about service and to talk about leadership.As he himself once said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, â€Å"You're young,† he said, â€Å"and you're vigorous, and your service will be the foundation for peace and prosperity throughout the world. † Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning. Truly you here in this room are our future. And it is most fitting for us to come together right here in these very halls where George Marshall once walked to h onor him and to reflect on his great contributions and to share some thoughts on leadership.If you were to think back over this century, you would realize very quickly that our Army has produced some truly remarkable military leaders. I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write down the names of the great Army leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were done, the lists that you produced would be very long. Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most recently two of my former bosses, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. But if you study them closely, you realize that each was very different, that the fame they acquired had very different roots. Omar Bradley — simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldier's soldier à ¢â‚¬â€ loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army group commanders. Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity.Some say his outward appearance and reputation were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the knowledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our W[orld] W[ar] II coalition. But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower wanted others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance.Quite contrary to these assertions, he held deep convictions, and he never ceded or compromised any point that he felt important. Our campaign to seize Europe from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the start of the war back in 1942, a plan for which at first there was only lukewarm support among American leaders and nearly total opposition from our British allies.Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhower's approach we executed, and it was militarily brilliant. And any study of our great generals must include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and hard-bitten fighter who felt the pulse and flow of the battlefield in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but also a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so many others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of talented leaders. But there is one giant who stands above them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, I'm convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthur's brilliance and courtliness. He had Patton's tenacity and drive. He had Br adley's personal magnetism, the  ability to inspire confidence and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short years converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a handful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million — the best equipped, the best fighting army in the world, an army that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other men's strengths that allowed him to see the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy. And as we learned after the war, he was as well perhaps the greatest statesman and visionary of his age.All of us should remember that the occupations of Germany and J apan were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the architect of these occupations was Marshall. But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a speech at Harvard, Marshall put in motion the plan that would rebuild Western Europe, that would recover its people from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today: a Western Europe poised on the edge of becoming a cohesive union of nations.What an accomplishment! It is staggering to think of what this one officer accomplished in his career of service to his nation. But most humbling is to realize that to his death Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his reputation for any personal gain. If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leader and  described to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no doubt that that bust would look exactly like Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make soldiering our way of life, it is always instructive to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshall's career, for by so doing we are reminded of much that we should try to emulate. But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these next steps for you, which will lead to a gold bar of a second lieutenant.I doubt very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask just that from you. If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenant's bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general. The other week while a guest on Larry King 's show, Larry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple.I told him that when I was a private my ambition was to become a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the 1st Battle Group of the 9th Infantry, my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or major or even a captain!My thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about being up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in front of Sgt.1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine. And I was right to concentrate on the job at hand, for the job of a lieutenant is a tough one — in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one — but it is without a doubt also the most important, and if you take to it, also the most rewarding. I was very fortunate, because I had Sergeant Grice to guide me and to teach me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me feel inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the best!And if there is one thing I wish for each and every one of you, it is a Sergeant Grice to teach you about soldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities and joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as blessed as I was; not everyone finds his Sergeant Grice, and many don't not because he isn't there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they push him away. Don't do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice; NCOs have so very much to teach us. Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice?Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many helpful hints have probably by now faded from my memory. But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leader ship, whether in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three pillars. These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and professional competence. Oh, Sergeant Grice didn't exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed that I wasn't up front with them, if they ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was. Often he would say, â€Å"Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Don't worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you. † He never said it, that's not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasn't the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader.I would be finished as a leader. Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders weren't trusted. It's just that simple. And it isn't enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do. Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, put it this way: â€Å"If you want them to work hard and endure hardship,† he observed, â€Å"you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"They must see you sacrifice for them,† he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadn't gotten just right. But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you simply enjoy being with them. Words won't get you through there, either.If you don't feel it in your heart, if you don't love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it. How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the extra time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who needed extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the rifle range the next time around; to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a â€Å"Dear John† letter; to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help.They expect and, I tell  you, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort. And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the p latoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the last one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the last soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the welfare of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of the troops; that if mismanagement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without; that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers. But caring for our soldiers does not stop at the chow line.Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are fa milies, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when he's away from home. But caring for soldiers actually starts with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, there are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards. Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that made them great generals to ok decades of training, of experience and of evolution.For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were marked by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. Always they were a snapshot of a masterpiece still in progress, still in motion. From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills. And Grice understood that very well, although he had different words for it.He knew that if our platoon was going to be good at occupying a position and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a finely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they; that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, th ere was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much play in the sight mount on that mortar.And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me. In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities: character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldiers to have confidence in them. And you know, the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion. If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a sing le second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morning! Good luck to you all. I envy you. Leadership in the Military There is surely no more talent nor more hope for the future than right here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade places with you, but at the same time, looking at all of you I am supremely confident that here among you sit the future great captains of our military and that we can all be very confident about tomorrow.And I am convinced that if he were alive today, Gen. Marshall would be right here, for there is nothing that that great soldier loved more than to talk about service and to talk about leadership.As he himself once said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, â€Å"You're young,† he said, â€Å"and you're vigorous, and your service will be the foundation for peace and prosperity throughout the world.† Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning.Truly you here in this room are our future. And it is most fitting for us to come together right here in these very halls where George Marshall once walked to hono r him and to reflect on his great contributions and to share some thoughts on leadership.If you were to think back over this century, you would realize very quickly that our Army has produced some truly remarkable military leaders.I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write down the names of the great Army leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were done, the lists that you produced would be very long.Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most recently two of my former bosses, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. But if you study them closely, you realize that each was very different, that the fame they acquired had  very different roots. Omar Bradley — simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldier's soldier â⠂¬â€ loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army group commanders.Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity. Some say his outward appearance and reputation were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the knowledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our W[orld] W[ar] II coalition.But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower wanted others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance. Quite contrary to these assertions, he held deep convictions, and he never ceded or compromised any point that he felt important.Our campaign to seize Europe from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the start of the war back in 1942, a p lan for which at first there was only lukewarm support among American leaders and nearly total opposition from our British allies. Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhower's approach we executed, and it was militarily brilliant.And any study of our great generals must include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and hard-bitten fighter who felt the pulse and flow of the battlefield in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but also a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so many others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of talented leaders. But there is one giant who stands above them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, I'm convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthur's brilliance and courtliness. He had Patton's tenacity and drive. He had Bradl ey's personal magnetism, the  ability to inspire confidence and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short years converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a handful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million — the best equipped, the best fighting army in the world, an army that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other men's strengths that allowed him to see the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy.And as we learned after the war, he was as well perhaps the greatest statesman and visionary of his age. All of us should remember that the occupations of Germany and Japa n were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the architect of these occupations was Marshall.But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a speech at Harvard, Marshall put in motion the plan that would rebuild Western Europe, that would recover its people from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today: a Western Europe poised on the edge of becoming a cohesive union of nations. What an accomplishment!It is staggering to think of what this one officer accomplished in his career of service to his nation. But most humbling is to realize that to his death Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his reputation for any personal gain.If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leade r and described to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no doubt that that bust would look exactly like Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make soldiering our way of life, it is always instructive to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshall's career, for by so doing we are reminded of much that we should try to emulate.But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these next steps for you, which will lead to a gold bar of a second lieutenant. I doubt very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask just that from you.If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenant's bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general.The other week while a guest on Larry King's show, L arry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple. I told him that when I was a private my ambition was to become a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the 1st Battle Group of the 9th Infantry, my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or major or even a captain!My thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about being up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in front of Sgt. 1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine.And I was right to concentrate on the job at hand, for the job of a lieutenant is a tough one — in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one — but it is without a doubt also the most important , and if you take to it, also the most rewarding.I was very fortunate, because I had Sergeant Grice to guide me and to teach me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me feel inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the best!And if there is one thing I wish for each and every one of you, it is a Sergeant Grice to teach you about soldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities and joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as blessed as I was; not everyone finds his Sergeant Grice, and many don't not because he isn't there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they push him away. Don't do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice; NCOs have so very much to teach us.Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice? Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many helpful hints have probably by now faded from my memory.But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leadership, wheth er in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three pillars.These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and professional competence.Oh, Sergeant Grice didn't exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed that I wasn't up front with them, if they ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was.Often he would say, â€Å"Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Don't worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you.†He never said it, that's not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasn't the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader. I would be finished as a leader.Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders weren't trusted. It's just that simple.And it isn't enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do.Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, put it this way: â€Å"If you want them to work hard and endure hardship,† he observed, â€Å"you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship.† â€Å"They must see you sacrifice for them,† he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadn't gotten just right.But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you simply enjoy being with them. Words won't get you through there, either. If you don't feel it in your heart, if you don't love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it.How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the extra time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who needed extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the rifle range the next time around; to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a â€Å"Dear John† letter; to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help. They expect and, I tell you, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort.And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the platoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the last one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the last soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the welfare of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of the troops; that if mismanagement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without; that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers.But caring for our soldiers does not stop at the chow line. Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are families, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when he's away from home.But caring for soldiers actually starts with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, there are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards.Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that made them great generals took decades of training, of experience and of evolution. For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were marked by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. Always they were a snapshot of a masterpiece still in progress, still in motion.From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills.And Grice understood that very well, although he had different words for it. He knew that if our platoon was going to be good at occupying a position and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a finely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they; that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, there was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much play in the sight mount on that mortar. And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me.In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities: character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldiers to have confidence in them.And you know, the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion.If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a single second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morning!Good luck to you all. I envy you.

Is War Ethical Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Is War Ethical - Essay Example Some people like war. They believe that war can change their lives only to realize that it caused them more harm than they had thought. Those who win always get power over the losers. They also get wealth and resources. They make laws to govern the territory. Many people have been asking themselves very many questions about war. These questions may include: is ethical to go to war? When is the right time to start war? Is it right to revenge against those wrong us? Is it ethical to interfere with other states affairs? Anyone who thinks about war must put in consideration what is right and wrong. Anything happening in war is either considered right or wrong depending on the people affected. Those who are the cause of war take every action to be right because it favors their interests. The other victims take the action to be wrong because it affects them negatively. Therefore, war has both positive and negative effects in the human population. War is a brutal activity but it is still th e centre of human history and the changes in social lives. It is because of war that some countries have changed in their economy and the way of live. During the time of war, life becomes hard for weak population (Coates, 2006). The weak people in the society are always the victims of war. In â€Å"Sirens of Bagdad†, Bedouin family is very poor. They live in a village in the Iraqi desert called Kafr Karam. Bedouin is a young man who is determined to be a more educated man than his father who never went to school. He goes to university of Bagdad but his education is cut short by invasion of Americans in the area. The university is destroyed and later closed making him go back home. Therefore, war kills his ambition of being a good person with a well paying job after the university. His dreams are crushed completely making him see no reason to live. This is how war can affect lives of the innocent people in the society (Khadra, 2007). War is always a very bad thing that can hap pen in the society. It compromises no one including the one who causes it. War abuses the human rights. Many people are killed, displaced from their homes while others lose their properties. This is against the human rights. War is way of governing using force instead of using peaceful measures of resolving policies. Some people in the government use their power to control what should be going on in a certain territory. They do not care how commands are going to affect the lives of people living in that territory. Lives of these people are going to be affected greatly. Bedouin, in â€Å"Sirens of Bagdad†, was affected by war caused by the Americans in Bagdad. It made him lose hope in life. It is because of war that he is forced to drop his education since the university he was studying in closed. War also follows him back to his village. He feels so embarrassed when he sees his father half-naked after being raided by the American soldiers. The way he felt was really touching. He says, â€Å"And beyond it, there was nothing but an infinite void, an interminable void, nothingness.† He says that he is forced to see his father’s genitals. What life is he going through? War has ruined his education and now it follows him home where he sees his weak father pulled around by war soldiers. All these actions changed him into a very angry man ready for vengeance (Khadra, 2007). Sometimes it is right to wage war. This especially is when a country has to protect her citizens from any terrorist attack. Every

Unit 5, Chapter 10,11, and 12 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unit 5, Chapter 10,11, and 12 - Coursework Example Bartol, in her book Management: A pacific rim focus, illustrates a process of change management in eight steps. The problem of having adversarial relationships that are proven to be counterproductive and detrimental to the operations within the organization has to be identified. Only by recognizing that this is really a problem that has to be addressed, can solutions be determined to solve the problem. In order to backup the planned change, the most powerful sponsors, usually the key people, who are the executives, are to be informed about the planned change, and to gather their support in order for the change to be communicated to the rest of the company. In this part, the vision of changing the organizational structure has to be developed and communicated, first to those people who can pass around the information. In developing a vision, it could be helpful to involve the rest of the company in order for them not to feel like the vision is a top-down command. It is to enable them to know the situation of the company and to feel like being more involved to what is happening, which makes them more receptive to the changes that will be enforced in line with the vision. By giving the proper authority to people who are capable of communicating the desired vision about the change in organizational structure, these people will have better chance to act out the vision. This may entail choosing the right people to conduct seminars and trainings to inform the other employees about the changes, and form a certain system to create these changes. Employees should be encouraged to act out the vision and adhere to the changes that are taking place within the company. In this case, promoting cross-functional teams would entail cutting down processes that are potential barriers. Because this major structural change would require flattening the organization, as various processes would be cut down, a lot of positions come with them. This would make resistance more intense

Total Quality Management Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Total Quality Management - Case Study Example Total Quality Management helps in integration of activities, which constitutes of the integrated system of various principles and is the prime determinants of sustainable competitive advantage for any other company. To retain customers and to create customer value the management needs to focus on providing employees a service, which is customer effective than its competitors. The customer satisfaction transforms into customer delight when the services and goods exceed customer expectations. TQM approach helps in improving the quality of services and goods on a continuous basis, which involves the participation of the individuals at every level and phase of organization. The Japanese organizations were the first to adopt the TQM approach during the early 1950’s. TQM includes methods like Just in Time and Jidoka, which means in station quality. Just in Time system is the most widely used TQM approach which involves the flow of materials in processed way where the right part is r eceived at the right time and the right place. (Radisic, n.d.).The Kanban or the instructions are received from customers and helps in the process of replenishment of the material parts. The results are the establishment of pull approach towards production activities followed in most of the companies. The concept of Jidoka is extremely complex in nature and is not popular amongst other companies. This relates to the types of intelligence machine, which has the potentiality of stopping the production process

Indecent Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Indecent Behavior - Essay Example 439). The attraction towards indecency through media is increasing day by day. Studies concerned with internet utilization prove that the sites which provide access to sexual materials have great popularity among the internet users. There is the great threat that the children may easily get exposed to indecent content and in order to prevent it the congress enacted the Communications Decency Act of 1996. It prohibited anyone from knowingly transmitting any indecent communication to persons under the age of 18, through a telecommunications device (Lively & Weaver, 2006, P. 149). The society is a deciding factor in determining what is right and what is wrong. Social changes occurring in one’s society can alter one’s attitude and behaviors. Say for people have different opinions about the homosexuality. Some are totally against it while the other group gives consent mentally. Certain countries’ legal systems make the particular group see themselves as wronged and pe rsecuted and it relieves their feeling of guilt. It is because of the police that homosexuals often regard themselves as unfairly treated minority group (Nardi & Schneider, 1998, p.

Critically evaluate the strategic role of global information systems Essay

Critically evaluate the strategic role of global information systems for organisations and discuss the management issues associa - Essay Example Information systems have, therefore, had a profound effect on the performance of global businesses by transforming their ability to deliver value to customers (Czinkota et al., 2005). However, the application of information system has unfortunately stemmed on the basis of companies’ internal operations with little focus of the global paradigm. This means that international requirements, including cross-cultural differences, have yet to be fully materialized into the information systems used by these global businesses. Most often global information systems are evaluated from the same perspective as their local counterparts; however, the former demands attention to some particular aspects. An integrated and holistic information systems approach has enabled organizations conduct business processes online (e-business), co ordinate upstream and downstream supply chain partners (e-commerce) and enable entrepreneurs streamline their innovative ideas and creativity (Pearlson & Saunder s, 2009). The key to competitive advantage in today’s world, therefore, does not lie in traditional cost reduction or differentiation techniques but in rapidly adapting to changing customer tastes and implementing learning and innovation to product offerings in real-time (Phillips & Haag, 2009). As an extension to Porter’s resource based view, researchers explored the direct positive relationship between effective information management and company success by explaining how information used could enhance the organization’s learning, innovation and creative abilities. The virtual value chain is centered on the notion of seamless flow of information across all levels of the organization that enable it to deliver value to its customers. Therefore, information systems have been linked to the dramatic improvement of the value chain, marketing strategies, customer service and internal communications framework. However, â€Å"global† information systems go far b eyond just that. Global businesses face a number of constraints on the number of locations in which they decide to operate internationally. Challenges such as those related to networking and communication, socio-economic and political risks, differences in culture as well as unfamiliarity with the market all limit organizations’ capacity to operate effectively in the global marketplace (Czinkota et al., 2005). It is here that information systems have truly transformed global businesses. Researchers who highlighted the strategic importance of IS demonstrated the relationship between IS and business strategy and went on to state that information systems were necessary in achieving a competitive edge for the firm (Peppard & Ward, 2004) (Pearlson & Saunders, 2009). There have been various studies examining the relationship between successful firms and effective use of information systems. However, it is not clear whether these systems have a direct relation with the firm’s success or whether they are merely a part of a portfolio of resources that enables firms achieve competitive advantage. Furthermore, most companies have now started to outsource IS in their organizations. This handing over of IS to third parties in itself contradicts the view that IS serve a strategic function in organizations. Despite increased popularity of outsourcing of IS in organizations, the slogan of keeping IS intact with the