General Officers and Physical Fitness

Perusing Tom Ricks blog on the Foreign Policy website this morning.  Came across an interesting statement from Winston Churchill to the Secretary of State for War in 1941.

“Is it really true that a seven-mile cross-country run is enforced upon all in this division, from generals to privates? . . . It looks to me rather excessive. A colonel or general ought not to exhaust himself in trying to compete with young boys running across country seven miles at a time. The duty of officers is no doubt to keep themselves fit, but still more to think for their men, and to take decisions affecting their safety or comfort. Who is the general of this division, and does he run the seven miles himself? If so, he may be more use for football that war. Could Napoleon have run seven miles across country at Austerlitz? Perhaps it was the other fellow he made run. In my experience, based on many years’ observation, officers with high athletic qualifications are not usually successful in the higher ranks.”

I'm guessing by Winston Churchill's standard I would physically make a great general today as I am carrying about 25 pounds more now than I should be carrying (and this is the fact only because I shed about 30 pounds in the last year).  For my own two cents I believe the general officers should be mental, moral, and physical examples for the troops they lead.  I also believe that it is the second of my three components "moral" that represents the greater failing today of general officers--caveat offered here:  of the general officers we read about in the news and we all know that the news is looking for stuff to grab readers attention so that we will also see the advertisments.  While the "moral" component appears as the biggest lack, I must say that nearly all of the senior officers whom I have had the pleasure to know during my life were men of strong moral character, physically fit, and mentally sharp.  Maybe Churchill was wrong in his reasoning on this particular item.