The Special Service Corps

The Special Service Corps is the military organization commanded by General P. P. Peckem, a pompous and ambitious officer who uses it as a vehicle for bureaucratic self-aggrandizement and for waging a turf war against General Dreedle's combat wing. Under Peckem's leadership, the Corps is dedicated not to supporting combat troops but to generating memoranda, staging U.S.O. shows, and ultimately capturing all bomber groups for itself. Its defining moment of triumph—absorbing combat operations—immediately backfires when Peckem's own protégé, Colonel Scheisskopf, is promoted over him and takes command, turning the Corps into an instrument for enforcing military parades.

Nature and Structure

The Special Service Corps is a rear-echelon administrative unit whose actual function is almost entirely self-perpetuating. General Peckem, its commanding officer, believes that dropping bombs on the enemy is a special service and that all combat units in the theater should therefore be placed under his jurisdiction. He is a spry, suave, and very precise general who knows the circumference of the equator and always writes "enhanced" when he means "increased." His headquarters are in Rome, deliberately kept far from the actual fighting. The Corps produces a steady stream of prolix bulletins headed by homilies such as "Procrastination is the Thief of Time" and "Cleanliness is Next to Godliness." Peckem's aide, Colonel Cargill, is a self-made man who owes his lack of success to nobody; before the war he was a marketing executive so awful that firms sought him out to establish losses for tax purposes. The Corps also acquires Colonel Scheisskopf, an R.O.T.C. graduate whose only military passion is marching, and who is promoted to lieutenant general and placed in charge of all combat operations.

Aims and Methods

Peckem's overriding objective is to replace General Dreedle as wing commander and to absorb Dreedle's four bomb groups into the Special Service Corps. He pursues this goal not through combat achievement but through bureaucratic infiltration: he keeps invading Dreedle's jurisdiction with comments and criticisms that are really none of his business, and when Dreedle accuses him of seeking to undermine him, Peckem answers that his only purpose is to strengthen the war effort by eliminating inefficiency. He then asks innocently if Dreedle is opposed to improving the war effort. Peckem also cultivates ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, the mail clerk at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters, who controls the flow of correspondence. Wintergreen, however, throws Peckem's prolix communications into the wastebasket and favors Dreedle's less pretentious style, so Peckem's early efforts are defeated by default. To regain status, Peckem begins sending out more U.S.O. troupes and assigns Colonel Cargill the responsibility of generating enthusiasm for them. Cargill addresses the enlisted men as "American officers" and then, corrected, tells the actual officers that the U.S.O. girl who wants to play the accordion is old enough to be a mother.

Major Actions and Development

The Corps's most significant bureaucratic victory comes when Peckem executes a maneuver that doubles his strength: he acquires Colonel Scheisskopf as a subordinate, giving him two full colonels on his staff. This allows him to agitate for two additional majors, four additional captains, sixteen additional lieutenants, and untold quantities of additional equipment. Peckem then begins issuing directives that encroach on combat operations, such as requiring all tents in the Mediterranean theater to be pitched along parallel lines with entrances facing back toward the Washington Monument. Dreedle, who runs a fighting outfit, considers this a lot of crap, but Peckem persists. The culmination of Peckem's campaign occurs when combat operations are transferred to the Special Service Corps. Peckem moves into Dreedle's office, believing he has won. Almost immediately, however, he learns that Scheisskopf has been promoted to lieutenant general and placed in charge of everything. Scheisskopf's first order is that no one in Peckem's command may issue orders without clearing them through him. Peckem's victory collapses as Scheisskopf announces that everyone must march.

Significance

The Special Service Corps embodies the novel's critique of bureaucratic self-interest masquerading as service. Peckem's entire enterprise is a war against his own side, fought with memoranda and directives rather than bombs. His triumph—absorbing combat operations—is immediately hollowed out by Scheisskopf's promotion, revealing that the Corps's real function was never to support the war effort but to provide a ladder for personal advancement. The Corps's final legacy is the imposition of military parades, the very activity Scheisskopf had been denied, now enforced on all combat units. The Corps thus completes its transformation from a support organization into an instrument of pointless regimentation.