It is often pointed out these days that few journalists understand the military or have served in it. One of my late Dad's friends was John Averill, the Washington DC correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Averill's most vivid memory of World War II was not the time he was wounded, or when he earned a Bronze Star with "V," or when he received his battlefield commission -- it was when he was awakened from a daytime nap he was taking on the deck of his Sherman tank by a furious George S. Patton, who was whipping him on the legs with his riding crop, angry to see leaders setting a bad example.