Comment by cafard
1 day ago
As far as I know, all branches of the US military write up a "fitness report" for each officer once a year. "Above Average" is a certain career killer.
But somebody who was a dean at (I think) Virginia Tech wrote that the British "His work is quite sound, actually" could be higher praise than the American "His work sets the standard we all aspire to."
Exactly! Another, semi-related difference between the cultures: When Alexander chooseEitherOrBothOf(provided instructions, gave orders) during the Sicilian campaign, American generals took them as orders and did them, sometimes to their detriment, while British generals took them as intent/direction, and asked questions.
Eventually, the allies realized they had very different command cultures and learned to work together. It may be that Normandy, et al, would have been far different if they hadn't have figured this out in Sicily.