ARMED FORCES: The House of Brass

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In the Pentagon, he becomes an anonymous cog in, say, the Reserve Components Branch of the Organization & Training Division in the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations. He exchanges his comfortable rent-free house in Germany for a six-room row house in Arlington County which he has to buy for $23,000 because no houses are available for rent. His $632-a-month salary barely covers his expenses (some captains have to drive taxicabs at night to make ends meet). In the Pentagon he finds that a lieutenant colonel rates lower than one of his own first lieutenants did back in Germany. He commands nobody, not even a stenographer, does not rate an office to himself. He embarks on a career of reading thick reports, writing analyses.

The Pentagon vocabulary closely resembles plain English, but must be learned. "Implement" means do, "formalize" means write it down, and "finalize" means finish it. Cynics devise more irreverent definitions :

Program: Any assignment that can't be completed in one phone call. Channels: The trail left by an interoffice memo. To Expedite: To confound confusion with commotion. Under Consideration: Never heard of it. Under Active Consideration: We're looking in the files for it. Coordinator: A guy who has a desk between two expediters. Modification Policy: A complete reversal which nobody admits. A Survey Is Being Made of This: We need more time to think of an answer. Note and Initial: Let's spread the responsibility for this. Point Up the Issue: Expand one page to 15 pages. Referred for Appropriate Action: Maybe your office will know what to do with this.

The endlessly flowing paper is controlled by colored tags and big "buck-slips." Congressional letters, of which the Pentagon gets about 300 a day, get a yellow "expedite" tag; an "urgent" tag is red, and one "rush-rush" marker is known as "the green hornet." An expert use of the buckslip—a small routing slip on which higher authority checks off directions such as "for action," "please brief for me," etc. —is an essential Pentagon skill. The classic story is one of a newly arrived Navy commander, snowed under with accumulating papers, who stumped over to an old hand behind a spotlessly clean desk and demanded to know how it was done. "Its easy," said the old hand. "I just write on the buckslip, 'Commander Smith probably would be interested in this.' " Roared the newcomer: "You b......, I'm Commander Smith."

Through Channels. Into this labyrinth of procedure, personalities and policy, messages chatter night & day, seeking decisions, recommendations, remedies. They range from the crucial to the trivial.