Logisticians have the Logistician's Lament.
The Logistician
Logisticians are a sad and embittered race of men who are very much
in demand in war, and who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace.
They deal only in facts, but must work for men who merchant in
theories. They emerge during war because war is very much a fact.
They disappear in peace because peace is mostly theory. The people
who merchant in theories, and who employ logisticians in war and
ignore them in peace, are generals.
Generals are a happily blessed race who radiate confidence and
power. They feed only on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace,
they stride confidently and can invade a world simply by sweeping
their hands grandly over a map, pointing their fingers decisively
up terrain corridors, and blocking defiles and obstacles with the
sides of their hands. In war, they must stride more slowly because
each general has a logistician riding on his back and he knows
that, at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper:
"No, you can't do that." Generals fear logisticians in war and in
peace, generals try to forget logisticians.
Romping along beside generals are strategists and tacticians.
Logisticians despise strategists and tacticians. Strategists and
tacticians do not know about logisticians until they grow to become
generals--which they usually do.
Sometimes a logistician becomes a general. If he does, he must
associate with generals whom he hates; he has a retinue of
strategists and tacticians whom he despises; and, on his back, is a
logistician whom he fears. This is why logisticians who become
generals always have ulcers and cannot eat their
ambrosia.
