But he was slowly acquiring skills. During postgraduate training at Fort Leavenworth, Marshall became an autodidact, compensating for his lamentable academic record. He was shuffled to the Philippines and across the American South and Midwest, serving as engineering officer, ordnance officer, post quartermaster, post commissary officer, and in other undistinguished staff positions. Each day passed to the rhythm of his daily chores and minor accomplishments. However, his attention to detail and endurance would serve him later on. As he later observed, “The truly great leader overcomes all difficulties, and campaigns and battles are nothing but a long series of difficulties to be overcome.”17
He sublimated his ego: “The less you agree with the policies of your superiors, the more energy you must direct to their accomplishment.” Biographers have scoured his life, and the most striking feature is what they don’t find—any moment of clear moral failure. He made many poor decisions, but there is no clear moment when he committed adultery, betrayed his friends, told an egregious lie, or let himself and others down.
Though promotions did not come, Marshall began to develop a reputation as a legendary master of organization and administration. It was not exactly the glamor side of military life. In 1912, he organized maneuvers involving 17,000 officers and men in the United States. In 1914, during a training exercise in the Philippines, he effectively commanded an invading force of 4,800 men to tactically out-maneuver and defeat the defending force.
In World War I, Marshall served as an assistant to the chief of staff of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) for the 1st Division in France. It was the first division ever fielded by the American Army in Europe, and, contrary to popular belief, Marshall saw more action and ducked more shot, shells, and gas attacks than many other Americans in the war. His assignment was to keep AEF headquarters informed about the frontline supplies, position, and morale of the men. Much of his time was spent on or near the front in France, jumping in and out of trenches, checking in with the soldiers, and taking note of what they most desperately needed.
The moment he returned safely to headquarters, he would report to the chief and begin mapping out logistics for the next massive movement of men to or from the line. In one operation, he organized the movement of 600,000 men and 900,000 tons of supplies and ammunition from one sector to another part of the front. It was the most complicated logistics problem of the war, and Marshall’s performance became legendary, earning him the temporary nickname “Wizard.”
During October 1917, Marshall’s unit received a visit from General John “Blackjack” Pershing, the senior U.S. commander in the war. Pershing ripped into the unit for its poor training and performance, upbraiding Marshall’s immediate commanding officer General William Sibert and Sibert’s chief of staff, who had arrived only two days earlier. Marshall, then a captain, decided it was time for what he called a “sacrifice play.” He stepped forward and attempted to explain the situation to the general. An already irate Pershing silenced Marshall and turned away. Marshall then did something that could have cost him his career. He placed his hand on Pershing’s arm to prevent him from leaving. He vehemently countered the old man, overwhelming him with a torrent of facts about the failures of Pershing’s own headquarters, about poor supplies, the misplacement of the troops, the lack of motor transport, and many other hurdles not to be overlooked.
There was a long silence and everyone stood amazed by Marshall’s effrontery. Pershing looked at him narrowly and responded defensively, “Well, you have to appreciate the problems we have.”
Marshall shot back, “Yes, General, but we have them every day and many a day, and we have to solve every one of them by night.”
Pershing said nothing and stalked off angrily. Marshall’s colleagues thanked him and told him his career was finished. Instead, Pershing remembered the younger man, hired him, and became his most important mentor.
Marshall was shocked by the letter he received summoning him to join the General Staff at its headquarters in Chaumont. He ached for a promotion that would position him to lead men into battle. However, he packed his bags immediately and said good-bye to the men he had known for more than a year. Tucked between war reports, Marshall wrote an uncharacteristically sentimental description of his departure:
It was hard to preserve one’s composure to these men with whom I had been so intimately associated for over a year in France. We had been prisoners and our trials and tribulations had seemed to bind us very close to one another. I can see them now—gathered in the broad doorway of the chateau. The friendly jests and affectionate farewells, as I got into the Cadillac, made a deep impression on my mind, and I drove off hardly daring to wonder when and where would be our next meeting.18
Six days later, the 1st Division joined the great counterattack that would lead to the retreat of the German army, and within seventy-two hours most of the men in that doorway, and every field officer, battalion commander, and the four lieutenants of the 1st Division, were casualties, either dead or wounded.
In 1918 in France, Marshall was close to being promoted to brigadier general. The war ended and it would take him eighteen long years to get his first star. He returned home, where he spent five years under Pershing in Washington doing paperwork. He served his superior officers but received few promotions for himself. Through it all, Marshall worked on his profession and served his institution, the U.S. Army.
Institutions
Today, it is unusual to meet someone with an institutional mindset. We live in an age of institutional anxiety, when people are prone to distrust large organizations. This is partly because we’ve seen the failure of these institutions and partly because in the era of the Big Me, we put the individual first. We tend to prize the freedom to navigate as we wish, to run our lives as we choose, and never to submerge our own individual identities in conformity to some bureaucracy or organization. We tend to assume that the purpose is to lead the richest and fullest individual life, jumping from one organization to the next as it suits our needs. Meaning is found in these acts of self-creation, in the things we make and contribute to, in our endless choices.
Nobody wants to be an Organization Man. We like start-ups, disruptors, and rebels. There’s less prestige accorded to those who tend to the perpetual reform and repair of institutions. Young people are raised to think that big problems can be solved by a swarm of small, networked NGOs and social entrepreneurs. Big hierarchical organizations are dinosaurs.
This mentality has contributed to institutional decay. As the editor Tina Brown has put it, if everybody is told to think outside the box, you’ve got to expect that the boxes themselves will begin to deteriorate.
People who possess an institutional mindset, as Marshall did, have a very different mentality, which begins with a different historical consciousness. In this mindset, the primary reality is society, which is a collection of institutions that have existed over time and transcend generations. A person is not born into an open field and a blank social slate. A person is born into a collection of permanent institutions, including the army, the priesthood, the fields of science, or any of the professions, like being a farmer, a builder, a cop, or a professor.
Life is not like navigating through an open field. It is committing oneself to a few of the institutions that were embedded on the ground before you were born and will be here after you die. It is accepting the gifts of the dead, taking on the responsibility of preserving and improving an institution and then transmitting that institution, better, on to the next generation.