One of my platoon sergeants when I was in the Army stood maybe 5 1/2 feet tall after putting on his boots. At first glance, there wasn’t much to this fellow, a Fiat on a freeway full of Ford trucks.

However, it didn’t take me long to learn that there was more to this man than met the eye after he picked me up from my initial processing into my new assignment at Baumholder, Germany.

Little dog syndrome, little man syndrome — whatever you want to call it, my new boss for two years had it. Whatever he was lacking in size, he tried to cover up by physically asserting his presence, and he was good at it.[…]