“Who is like God? »(1), the book of the army corps general Pierre Gillet, lists in an exhaustive way the qualities of a chief and draws up the Christian virtues necessary to the command. What could pass for an insider's book, a new TTA(1), becomes under the delicate and virile pen of Pierre Gillet, former corps commander of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, general commanding the rapid reaction corps - France , a poetry of being, imbued with spirituality, passion, perseverance and dignity.

“Why does a young Frenchman die in Afghanistan? France, the tricolor, no, bullshit! He dies for his buddy, his sergeant, his lieutenant, his colonel. Why ? Because, when you come close to death on a daily basis, a sacred alliance is created. It's just called love. Lieutenant General Antoine Lecerf declared the intention of the soldier in operation, and his sentence was intriguing, love would found his action, in this case, love alone, love alone too... Love is born of an action, love is based on works, as Pierre Gillet reminds us, but also on knowledge, the knowledge of souls, we will come back to this, the knowledge of human beings, because one must know well in order to love a great deal. Love opens and founds this primer and shows which leader General Gillet wants to talk to us about, a leader like the defeatists would say that there are no more because they do not want to see beauty and take pleasure in an attitude disillusioned. The leader knows that his order to be carried out with fervor must include an element of love. The soldier who does not love will have to learn to love. It's hard to imagine a very good soldier being plagued by resentment, he would put the mission in jeopardy. Love requires exposing oneself, letting go, taking a risk - there is also a reciprocity in action, the leader takes a risk by deciding, the subordinate takes a risk by doing everything possible to the realization of this decision. Any practitioner of combat sports knows that he is never more accessible than when he attacks. The centurion opening the side of Christ opens his heart ready to receive baptism. Thus it is necessary to carry out the mission to understand the extent of it. The comfort, if it comes from the mission carried out, comes to reinforce the confidence in its leader, in its orders. Becoming a soldier therefore consists in transforming “the love of the gift into the gift of love”.

The word vocation is absent from this primer, yet this word underlies the entire text. General Gillet depicts vocation, the fulfillment of vocation, “the densification of being” like the beautiful eponymous book(3) of the Vénard brothers. The only true obligation of the soldier: to become denser, by the exercise always renewed, by the abnegation, the taste of the effort, by the sweat again, by the elevation of the soul, by the love, always the love!, a job well done… There are a few trades requiring and allowing this densification: priest, poet and soldier, “trades” which are defined by vocation and merge with it. The call to become denser in order to show oneself worthy of "one's buddy, one's sergeant, one's lieutenant, one's colonel", of everything that counts and has a price for the being who wishes to defend and honor his country until to give his life. Densification is rooted in the relationship. The man copies. He needs a role model. Its adherence must be based on love and admiration. The model must therefore be exemplary. What allows this densification, is there a kind of magic, esotericism, to which one should adhere to reach this state?

The Authority and Membership chapter, a key chapter for the understanding of the book, which follows the Love chapter like its shadow, gives the answer and elevates the reader. Authority, the word has been so decried that we avoid using it, even people convinced of its usefulness prefer to use subterfuge to talk about it. However, authority represents the cornerstone on which all command is built, and therefore first and foremost self-command. Because it is illusory to think that a leader plagued by multiple demons will be able to command serenely. Authority proves to be the alpha and omega of a well-kept life. Without authority, no densification. Without authority, no vocation. Without authority, scattered ideas that overlap and create endless confusion. Without authority, Creon exists and becomes legitimate. A historian will come in the future and will analyze how our Western world has little by little taken away all sense of authority in order to try out a “horizontal authority” that no one will ever envy as it is such a farce. To become what you are, as Pindar said, you have to help yourself a lot, and have a little help from the structures in place: the family, the school, the army, the state... When most of these structures have also abrogated authority, the latent confrontation rumbles and advances, each will gradually attack his neighbor, because it is necessary to find a culprit according to the proven principle of the scapegoat. Authority is what restrains, what prevents. Authority forms a corset, a limit followed to the letter because who does not wish to obey the one he loves? Without authority, nothing holds back. Everything is allowed. At a time when transmission is declining, it is worth remembering that the army created links, learned to respect this link, and increased the number of men who gave of themselves to maintain this link. Of course she did it thanks to conscription, and it could be argued that this was not her job, because the war is fought with professionals. Nevertheless. The young Frenchman often learned authority when he was called up to serve, even if it is difficult to learn authority, it is essential not to confuse it with power… Authority comes from a great mystery, General Gillet quotes Hannah Arendt who in her book, "The Crisis of Culture" writes: "If authority is really to be defined, then it must be by opposing it both to coercion by force and persuasion by argument. “ The German philosopher collected in one sentence all the philosophy of Antigone! Authority is not power. Authoritarianism, often confused with the original, is a power, it no longer has anything to do with authority even if it is based and grows on its root. Authority allows the vocation, because it offers it a structure of thought. Always wanting to think higher than yourself, always looking for the solution that elevates to achieve the best of yourself. General Gillet recalls how much history illustrates this higher, this search for heights, for altitude, to admire and not to be complacent, to have strength too, a strength that comes from the elders. More Majorum . Be dignified and exemplary. Seeking altitude requires a lot of humility.

The principle of reality governs the leader because on its understanding depends the mission. If he were to fail on this point, to get lost in his ivory tower, to no longer worry about his subordinates, to act differently from what he advocates, to use words emptied of their meaning, it Is that he would have forgotten authority, otherwise it would bring him back to his duty, it would be the sheath that submits to the principle of reality, that dictates conduct and gives him the road to follow at all times. Like a gaze capable of changing at will, going from micro to macro and vice versa. The altitude to reach, the authority, the macro; the principle of reality, daily life, barracks, the microphone... Lieutenant General Pierre Gillet likes to recall that a corps commander who would stay in his office and whom we would only see in the morning when he arrives at the regiment driven by its driver, or at official gatherings, that is, always from afar, like some kind of mirage, would certainly miss something. The contact, the intimacy of a look, this famous bond which requires maintenance, humility and knowledge. Authority and hierarchy structure the soldier's life. Authority only needs one thing, adherence. Those who govern us and who still have the wild dream of having the people's membership should look into this book, because it would teach them the power of membership and how to create it, and the first rule put forward remains the exemplarity.

General Gillet's primer fits together like a puzzle. I can say, privileged witness(4), that Pierre Gillet had already composed a large part of the puzzle at the age of 20 when, as a young lieutenant, he arrived in the pit of the legionnaires. It is so common these days to see childish young adults, so far from their calling and indulging in self-entertainment. Pierre Gillet knew very early on where he wanted to go and the means he would use to get there. Already, he was densifying his person. Already, his experience of this densification was visible. It is easy to believe that a military school trains for this, but it trains rather to tend towards this, which is different because it will be necessary to pass the theory to the grindstone of practice. Pierre Gillet observed the others and constantly scrutinized the resources they used and the action they took. Pierre Gillet had a certain knowledge of souls, which in the army is summed up in an expression, "human dough". He was already answering to an authority that structured him and allowed him to have this macro and micro look, to be close to his legionnaires within his section of the Lighting and Support Company, and to lead them in operations. in the desert of Iraq or in Africa. Being a lieutenant in an elite regiment inaugurates an officer's life. To be a lieutenant circumscribes in a certain way what such an officer will be throughout his career. The young officer has not yet had the vice of hiding the weaknesses of his cuirass, failing to correct them, and he thinks that playing on his qualities will be enough. Arrogance lurks lurking in the cloak of ease. We can see the chief who will be the lieutenant and we can see the lieutenant who was a colonel. Lieutenant is a referent rank at a referent age, the latter commands on a wire and all his movements are analyzed by his superiors and by his subordinates. This perilous exercise also establishes an immense feeling of freedom which is so well suited to this age; the lieutenant knows he has a weapon for the last time in his career: recklessness. The lieutenant is still looking for this self-to-self coincidence mentioned by the historian François Hartog(5), a coincidence of the theory he is imbued with on leaving school and the practice of command with shrewd soldiers who are never given it. not. Pierre Gillet, lieutenant, had already drawn a precise demarcation between the state of power and the will to power. He was not looking for affirmation, but for self-understanding. The key to this famous coincidence.

There is a duty to practice this search for oneself in those who wish to improve themselves, to give more depth, to densify, to water down tendencies contrary to vocation, to plan, to mortify to be precise… Self-research is not an end in itself, because it can quickly become an egotistical and narcissistic exercise. General Pierre Gillet marvelously deciphers the different attitudes adopted like so many poses to hide the stains on a soul rather than to clean it! Become what you are . There are potentially as many bad leaders as bad performers. The author insists here on the interior life, nothing astonishing for a reader of the “Interviews on the interior life” of Dom Romain Banquet. The inner life comes to the aid of the leader who abandons himself to it. But the inner life is also found in a soldier who already has an inner treasure, an existence which has made him denser, which has given him, willingly or by force, a useful depth to carry out his mission. Suffice to say that the Foreign Legion is teeming with astonishing personalities who have lived through so much that each passing day offers itself as a new bonus. The army has a good thanks to this authority to which it obeys which structures each one in a body where he will be able to express his being. Nothing idyllic here, just a knowledge of souls the will to give them the elements of success in their expression. “Attention to subordinates does not contradict the idea that particular interests must give way to the common good.” summarizes Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Citadelle .

For the reader whose experience with the military has consisted of forced and coerced military service, as well as for the younger reader who will probably never wear the uniform, it is important to understand how technocratic command and military command differ. The importance is paramount, because the only command known to our contemporaries is often that of the state, therefore the technocratic. Military power is always aware of its limits. “The more precise and realistic the image that the chef will form of the future, the more likely it is to become. In this quote from André Maurois, there is the path to follow to understand what allows the densification that begins with rooting. The army curbs excess because it harms rootedness. A soldier knows his mission in the barracks as well as in operations. The same is true for its leader. Only rootedness allows this intimate and personal knowledge of the mission. This practice has never ceased in the army. It may happen that this entrenchment has been badly practiced, badly applied, badly transmitted, but it continues because the army relies on its application. The weakness, the temptations of men cannot change anything.

In everyone's imagination, the army represents strength, there are three references to the letter F in General Pierre Gillet's book: fidelity, faith, moral forces… Nothing concerning strength. Mistake ? Forgot? Why talk about strength? The soldier constantly trains to acquire self-confidence and the reflexes that will allow him to get out of most difficult situations. Strength is not an end. Knowing your locks, looking for what you hide from yourself, looking for freedom in all things, this is the duty of the soldier and the leader, because it will be understood that their common interests oblige them to marry together a number of virtues. . The author writes as follows: “Without always expressing it, many military leaders believe in something higher and stronger than the simple respectability of the people entrusted to them. They are witnesses of priceless generosity and surpassing oneself, sometimes in defiance of one's own life. They know that there is something more than mere material existence and the satisfaction of basic needs, which pushes their soldiers to surpass themselves, to remain faithful to their commitment until the end. As a result, they cultivate a high opinion of human dignity. Having seen the concrete manifestations of human greatness, they welcome the idea that man is oriented towards “a true realization of his being, that is to say towards the good. " The leader, if he is a good leader, allows this transfiguration by bringing his subordinate to accept the proposal, the orientation, by correcting the bad choice, by being patient, and by refusing the facilities and the injustices which hurt trust. If men under such command believe in it, those men will touch heaven with their hands. “A human being has a root through his real, active and natural participation in the existence of a community which keeps alive certain treasures of the past and certain presentiments of the future. Would it be possible to understand what is lacking in our time in order to live better? Could she tap into the military way part of her DNA to figure it out? General Pierre Gillet gives an elementary and masterful answer in his chapter on Freedom: “Acknowledge above all that this quest for truth can succeed. Our world favors personal perceptions, feelings, doubt rather than critical thinking, autonomy of thought and action rather than a thorough reflection on freedom and obedience. »

"There is no wonder but man" says the chorus of Antigone. The marvel is the freedom that man has received and that his creator has not taken away from him despite his shortcomings and his infidelities. He only corseted her with death. General Pierre Gillet has never ceased to discover this marvel throughout his thirty-year career, these bursts of marvel, in the souls of the soldiers and to bring them to clean what could be so that they too see this marvel before their eyes. Anyone who wants to command, even to command his life, where all command begins, must read this book. If the reader of this book sees in it a point in common with his daily life and the means of better mastering it, Pierre Gillet will have contributed to it. Because to the question of who is like God? The answer comes, obvious: those who must imitate him.

 

1- Who is like God?, an essay on the Christian virtues in the service of command. Pierre Gillet. Editions Sainte-Madeleine (https://boutique.barroux.org/philosophie-essais/3175-qui-est-comme-dieu-9782372880275.html)

2- TTA, Text all weapons, set of texts of general regulations of the French army.
3- Densification of the Being, preparing for difficult situations. Christian and Guillaume Vénard and Gérard Chaput. Pipa Editions.

4- I had the chance to meet Lieutenant Pierre Gillet when I served as a lieutenant in the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, he was the president of the lieutenants.
We became friends there, she never wavered. 5- Memoir of Ulysses, stories about the frontier in ancient Greece. Francois Hartog. Editions Gallimard.