Free Stark's Command by John G. Hemry Page B

to be digitized to hell and gone. There's always a rock where one ain't supposed to be, or no rock where the map says there is one."
    "Right. The Rock Gremlins." Stark laughed at her reference to the mythical creatures that altered terrain every time an allegedly definitive map had been produced. Since senior officers always insisted the maps had to be right, the enlisted joked that there had to be something moving rocks, hills, trees, buildings, and bodies of water around after the maps had been created. "So even terrain in a sim can't be exactly right," Vic continued. "What about fuzzier stuff, stuff you can't just scan from orbit and digitize? You know, how well a weapon works, how fast a soldier will move, how much ammo they'll need, how often they'll hit what they aim at. And that's fuzzy enough for our side. Now think about trying to input that data for the enemy. What the hell's so precise about any of it?"
    Stark thought about it. "Not much. You're saying a sim's just a bunch of guesstimates being run against other guesstimates, right?"
    "Exactly. Guesstimates precise to the tenth decimal point, but they're still guesstimates. Even when you're trying your damnedest to make it reflect some impartial reality, which apparently doesn't happen all that much."
    "Huh. I guess that's why the fantasy games some of the troops play seem just as real as the sims."
    "Yeah. As far as the computers are concerned, they're the same thing."
    "Great. So the sims aren't a magic bullet, even if we do our best to make them realistic. How else can we teach our people to be officers?"
    Vic canted her head to indicate her terminal. "I've been browsing around a little. There's a whole mess of Staff Education Courses in the files. I guess officers were supposed to do them in their free time."
    "Staff Education Courses? SECs?" Stark pronounced the acronym as one word in standard military fashion. "Who thought up that name for the courses?"
    "I wouldn't care to guess, but I'd bet somebody suggested it as a joke, and when some Generals liked it, everybody was afraid to tell them."
    "So what kind of SECs did our officers enjoy?"
    "Ethan, behave. Look. Here's one on Effective Battle Management."
    "You're kidding." Stark leaned to look closer, twisting his face skeptically as he did so. "How the hell do you 'manage' a battle? I always thought they were too big a mess for managing."
    "No idea, Ethan. But they apparently not only figured out how to 'manage' a battle, they figured out how to do it 'effectively,' too."
    "Uh-huh. If our officers were so good at managing battles, how come our battle plans were usually screwed up, and we had to fight like hell to win?"
    "You can't have everything, Ethan. Do you want your battles well-managed or do you want them well-planned?"
    "You're right. What was I thinking? What other kind of courses have they got in there?"
    "Let's see." Vic paged rapidly through menus. "Here's a whole bunch of courses on leadership."
    "Leadership? Officers were supposed to learn leadership from education courses?"
    "Guess so. We got Leadership Fundamentals, Leadership for Commanders— "
    "Who else leads? They got a 'Leadership for Followers' course?"
    "Haven't seen one yet, but it might be there. Then there's Advanced Leadership, Basic Leadership, which must differ somehow from fundamental leadership, Leadership for Field Grade Officers, Crisis Leadership, Effective Leadership— "
    "All the other kinds of leadership aren't effective?"
    "Based on our experience with officers, I'd say no. Hmmm. Here's Total Quality Leadership."
    "Which is also different from effective leadership, I guess. Do they have to call it 'total quality' so nobody will think it's half-ass quality?"
    "Midcareer Leadership!" Vic continued, ignoring Stark's latest jibe, "for those officers who haven't learned any leadership during the first half of their career, I suppose. Leadership Case Studies— "
    "Oh, for cryin' out loud," Stark complained. "These guys were