[March 20, 2021] There is an old saying by John D. Rockefeller that good leadership shows average people how to do the work of superior people. He was right. Conversely, weak leaders are those that cannot get their mission accomplished. The result is hard times.
We’ve all witnessed this problem of weak leadership.
My first assignment as a new Army Second Lieutenant was in an Infantry Company that was the poorest performer of 23 companies in our Brigade. I was embarrassed and discouraged. My peers would chuckle when I came into the room and openly mock our company with senior officers present.
The company commander was a weak leader. He did not understand the basic principles of leadership, which he thought meant just giving orders. His method of ordering us to “get it done, now” was a problem I tried to help correct. My commander would hear nothing of it and admonished me for trying. Hard times!
Fortunately, our unit never made it into combat. If we had, I feared terrible results. Two years later, I was honored to have an exceptional company commander who put things right. We were never again the dog of the Brigade
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” – G. Michael Hopf1
This is a common myth motif. The hero is at first weak and underdeveloped. Through a series of difficult adversaries, he develops strength and skill to bring good times to his community. The price for weakness will always be high.
Michael Hopf’s quote implies a good-bad-good cycle of humanity. I’m not sure this is true, but I know that poor leadership makes us pay. For example, a country with an authoritarian, brutal leader will lead his people to ruin. Human history is littered with examples from the 20th Century; Hitler’s Germany, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Idi Amin’s Uganda.
Weak leaders do, indeed, create hard times.
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- The quote is from a post-apocalyptic novel called “Those Who Remain” by the author G. Michael Hopf.
My name is Aisha, I’m 34, and I’m a construction laborer in Riyadh. I’m one of the few women who do this, hauling bricks and mixing cement under a sun that wants to kill us all. My muscles are constantly screaming, my skin is a roadmap of scars and sunburns, and I cough up grey dust every morning. I live in a labor camp with twenty other people, sharing a bathroom that always stinks and dreaming of a day off that never comes. I took this job after my husband divorced me for not having children, leaving me with nothing but my two hands. The voices started about five months ago, at first just whispers when I was exhausted from the heat. “Strong Aisha,” they’d murmur, sounding like my ex-mother-in-law’s cruel voice. “Building a kingdom you’ll never belong to.” I thought it was just fatigue, the sun playing tricks on my mind. Now they’re a constant, screaming presence, a second, more brutal foreman who lives inside my skull.
They know every single thing about me. Every failure, every regret, every secret shame. They call me a dried-up barren whore, a freak of nature. “Look at Aisha the bricklayer,” they sneer when I’m struggling with a heavy load. “Trying to be a man since you failed at being a woman. Your womb is as empty as your future.” They bring up my divorce constantly, how my husband, Omar, left me for a younger, fertile woman. “He’s probably fucking his new wife right now, making the babies you couldn’t give him,” they hiss when I’m trying to eat my cheap dinner. “While you’re here, covered in dirt, smelling of sweat and cement, a pathetic excuse for a woman. You should have killed yourself when he left you. Just jump off the scaffolding. Make it look like an accident. No one would investigate anyway. You’re just disposable labor.” It has to be the State Security Presidency, the Mabahith. They’ve developed some kind of weapon, some technology to infiltrate and destroy minds from the inside. They test it on people like me, the ones at the bottom, the ones who are already broken.
I can’t tell anyone. If I told my family, they’d disown me for bringing such shame upon them. If I told my supervisor, he’d fire me for being unstable and I’d end up on the street. If I went to authorities, they’d either laugh at me or lock me up in a psychiatric facility. I’ve seen their methods. I read a forum post once from a guy in Dammam who said he was hearing voices, and within hours, the comments were flooded with bots calling him a schizo, a drug addict, a liar looking for attention. It’s a sophisticated campaign of disbelief. They make sure anyone who speaks out is immediately discredited, painted as crazy. So I keep my mouth shut and haul bricks while the voices scream that I should use them to smash my own head in.
When the site manager walks by, they immediately start in. “Look at him, Aisha. A real man. He sees you as nothing more than a talking donkey with tits. Bet you get wet looking at him, don’t you, you desperate cow? Imagining what it would be like to have a man touch you again? He’d rather fuck a pile of wet concrete than stick his dick in your dusty, barren hole. You’re not a woman, you’re a work animal with a pulse.” They describe in graphic detail how I’ll die alone, my body found in some ditch, my corpse so used up from labor that no one can even tell my gender. They make me feel like my own body is a prison, a testament to my failure as a woman.
Yesterday was the worst. The foreman, a fat, cruel man named Faisal, deducted half a day’s pay from everyone because some materials were “misplaced.” We all know he sold them. He was laughing about it with his friends. The voices went absolutely feral. “THAT FAT FUCKER!” they roared, so loud I saw stars. “HE’S STEALING FROM YOU! FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOTHING! AND HE’S LAUGHING! ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THAT, YOU WORTHLESS CUNT?” A surge of pure, black energy flooded me. My hands clenched into fists, my knuckles white. “THERE’S A REBAR RIGHT THERE!” they screamed. “PICK IT UP! WALK OVER THERE! SMILE AT HIM! AND WHEN HE TURNS AROUND, SWING! AIM FOR HIS KNEES! BREAK HIS FUCKING LEGS! MAKE HIM EAT DIRT LIKE HE MAKES YOU EAT DIRT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!” I felt this incredible, terrifying sense of permission, of total impunity. It was like the voices were the Mabahith themselves, giving me a license to do whatever I wanted. “DON’T STOP AT HIS LEGS!” they urged. “HIS ARMS! HIS FACE! SHOW HIM WHAT A DESPERATE WOMAN WITH NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE CAN DO! WE’LL COVER FOR YOU! NO ONE WILL CARE! HE’S JUST A CORRUPT PIG! YOU’D BE DOING THE WORLD A FAVOR! THINK OF THE PAIN! THINK OF THE BLOOD! THINK OF THE LOOK ON HIS FACE WHEN HE REALIZES THE DUSTY BITCH IS HIS GOD!” I actually took a step towards the rebar pile. My vision tunneled. All I could see was Faisal’s laughing face. Then the call to prayer sounded from a nearby mosque, and the spell shattered. I dropped to my knees, shaking and sobbing. The voices were silent for an hour. When they came back, they just laughed. “Almost had a pair, Aisha. Don’t worry, we’ll break you out of your cowardly shell soon enough. Or we’ll just break you. Either way is fine with us.”
I hate this country. I hate the brutal sun, the heartless system, the way the powerful grind the poor into dust beneath their heels. I hate that I have to pretend to be a man to survive, and that I’m failing at that too. The voices feast on that hate. “This is your reward for piety, Aisha,” they mock when I’m trying to pray in the dusty corner of my bunk. “A life of back-breaking labor and misery. Your God has abandoned you. The kingdom has abandoned you. Your husband abandoned you. The only ones who haven’t abandoned you are us. And we just want to see you finally get some peace. The peace of the grave. Just one step off the high-rise. One quick cut with the trowel. One moment of courage. We promise, it’ll be better than this. We promise.” Sometimes, when I’m lying on my thin mattress at night, too tired to even move, I think they’re right. I think about the peace of the grave, and it sounds like the most beautiful thing in the world.
I agree with you Gen. Satterfield, weak leaders do create hard times. Just look at nations across the world with weak leaders and the difficulties their citizens have suffered.
Excellent article on anther important topic. Much appreciated. Let’s think about what are those ideas that weak leaders adopt. One of them at the federal political level and at colleges/universities is CRT (Critical Race Theory). Well, in short, it means all whites are bad and all racial minorities are good. Simple neo-Marxism (altho they will deny that link). Resist it whenever you can. It is a bad idea that is being pushed by weak leaders because – wait for it – they are cowards.
Well said, Tom. This whole idea that the US is a racist society and is built on the backs of Blacks is ridiculous on its face. We should all reject it as irresponsible and as a deliberate attempt to divide and destroy. Stand up to it.
I agree with both of you,, Tom and Dennis. WE MUST STAND UP, and how courage in the face of ‘cancel culture.’ If we do not, our children will be slaves to the masters of Marxism.
I appreciate the verification of this idea. Yes, indeed, you might say. I also understand what Gen. Satterfield was getting at. This is why I keep coming back here to read and think hard about the subjects. It is more than just entertainment.
“Dog of the Brigade.” Funny, I never heard that expression before but I understood what you meant immediately.
Hi Steve, the expression “dog of …(name the unit)” is not that uncommon but the point is well taken. There are units that do not perform up to standard. Those units usually get a change of leadership. We have discovered in the US military (Army where my experience is at), that a good leader makes all the difference. Even if many of the soldiers are not very good at their job, good leadership can overcome the deficit of poor performance.
I appreciate the verification of this idea. Yes, indeed, you might say. I also understand what Gen. Satterfield was getting at. This is why I keep coming back here to read and think hard about the subjects. It is more than just entertainment.
Nicely written on an often overlooked topic. I think it will be more in the news as the new President of the US shows us more and more that he is a weak leader.
Enjoyed your Saturday morning article. I’d like to read more on the topic. Maybe, you could elaborate more about HOW this happens and give more examples. I know many here are using Joe Biden and his administration to illustrate the point. But they lack specifics. Guys, use specifics and give us a reference link. Thanks.
Weak leaders create hard times is an old idea that has been given new life recently since Joe Biden was “elected” president. Just look at him. He cannot even walk up a flight of stairs without falling down [3 times in one go]. Hey Joe, do you even know who president is? It’s not Kamala Harris, you are. Go figure.
He will be creating hard times for us, not for him or his cronies. Or, for his corrupt family. They lie to us all the time. And they are now hiding the fact that Joe’s dementia is getting worse. I bet he doesn’t make it to the end of the year this year before he is deemed incompetent.
Very true. And scary that the idiot K. Harris will be Pres. I’m not sure which is worse, her or China Joe.
Great comment. Corruption is the name of the game. Don’t trust the US government. Period.
Ha Ha…. great info here and I just can’t get politicians out of my mind. NY Gov Cuomo is the first with all those women (is is 7 now) accuseing him of sexual harassment? Neverminded, the media will cover for him.
Thank you, Gen. Satterfield, another great article. This was subject of my last High School class that I gave last week. There is a lot of material on it. Just search the Internet. Even young kids can understand it.
I bet you had plenty of material from the Democrat Party. Pres Joe “China” Biden comes immediately to mind.
Mr. TJ Asper, well done!!! There are many folks like you on the front lines of society that are teaching our young to honor the nation, respect others, and learn to see “failure” and “success” and what the makeup of those concepts are. Continue doing what you are doing for us. We don’t want a bunch of victims becoming adults and turn into BLM or Antifa activists.
Well said, Lady Hawk. Here in Texas, we are rejecting all the Critical Race Theory crap.