God and the soldier we adore
In time of danger, not before.
The danger passed, and all things sighted;
God is forgotten, and the soldier slighted.

Doctrine of the Crisis Personality - from personal notes on lectures by RBThieme, Jr.

The Crisis Personality in General.
1. The key to the crisis personality is abnormal pressure and unusual circumstances. Abnormal circumstances generally
come from historical disaster.
2. The crisis personality, either through thought, speech, action, or a combination thereof, leads and dominates in
disaster.
3. There are three ways in which a crisis personality can meet disaster: through thought, speech, and/or action.
Therefore, the crisis personality, through these three systems, dominates in disaster, so that people involved in the disaster are
delivered, encouraged, changed, or in some other way profited from the disaster.
4. The profit is not always victory, but some form of blessing at that time or at a later time.
5. A crisis personality may be a good or a bad person; he may be pleasant or obnoxious, attractive or unattractive; but he is always controversial. The crisis personality emerges as the man of the hour in the greatest historical disaster, e.g., Winston Churchill.
6. He has the ability to think under pressure, which is the true definition of courage. The crisis personality may be even a
great public speaker whose message in historical disaster turns the tide, e.g., Booker T. Washington, Patrick Henry, or Martin
Luther, whose message of salvation by faith instead of works, nailed on the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, started the
Reformation.
7. Often, but not always, the crisis personality does not appear to adjust too well to normal times and normal
circumstances, like the hero who cannot adjust to the routine of garrison duty or civilian life, e.g., Chesty Puller, Lou Diamond.
8. Generally speaking, the crisis personality possesses great honor, integrity, and realizes the peak of his expression
under disaster circumstances. Once the crisis is passed, the crisis personality is all too often forgotten, Eccl 9:14,15.
9. A veteran of the Marlborough wars once wrote the following.
God and the soldier we adore
In time of danger, not before.
The danger passed, and all things sighted;
God is forgotten, and the soldier slighted.
10. In time of disaster, people follow the leadership of the crisis personality. But once the disaster is over, the same people
are often embarrassed by their bad decisions which first created the disaster. Therefore, they blot out the embarrassment of their
own failure, and simultaneously, they blot out the hero.