Officer Responsibility Quotes

My father volunteered in early 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and became an officer in the U.S. Navy. As I was growing up, he taught me the responsibility of command: A leader is ultimately responsible for every aspect of the welfare of people under his or her care. That was a deeply felt obligation in his generation.

It is the duty of every good officer to obey any orders given him by his commander in chief.

If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.

It is not without good reason that two captains are assigned to every company. For as it always is uncertain, what will be the conduct of an officer, or to what accidents he may be exposed; and, as in the affairs of war, there is no room for pretext or excuse; this method is contrived, that the company may not upon any occasion be destitute of a leader. When the captains therefore both are present, he that was first chosen leads the right, and the other the left of the company. And when either of them is absent, he that remains takes the conduct of the whole.

There are no bad regiments, there are only bad officers.

I've always believed that no officer's life, regardless of rank, is of such great value to his country that he should seek safety in the rear... Officers should be forward with their men at the point of impact.

In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.

Discipline can only be obtained when all the officers are imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

It is absolutely bedrock to the British Army's philosophy that a commanding officer is responsible for what goes on within his command.

Law enforcement officers are entrusted with a tremendous responsibility; that is why we hold them to such a high standard. With that said, there are a small number of officers who have not lived up to that standard.

If officers desire to have control over their commands, they must remain habitually with them, industriously attend to their instruction and comfort, and in battle lead them well.

I think, generally, the NCOs and officers in a platoon or company want to take care of their soldiers, and they understand it doesn't run from nine to five, like in the civilian world.

Arms is a profession that, if its principles are adhered to for success, requires an officer do what he fears may be wrong, and yet, according to military experience, must be done, if success is to be attained.

The true distinction ... between what is called a fine Regiment, and an indifferent one will ever, upon investigation, be found to originate in, and depend upon the care, or the inattention, of the Officers belonging to them.