My Army friends always joked with me about my time in the Air Force as “not being in the real military” or serving in the “Chair Force.” It was all good natured and of course I stood up for myself by ribbing them right back about my not having to do Physical Training (PT) at 4:30 in the morning

—a time that I find better suited to be taking to the bed rather than getting out of it! Either way, we did our time in the service the best we could, remembered the good times, and let the less memorable moments slip into the past.

Yet the military can be a place to see some seriously high achievers—those whose accomplishments are so other-worldly that you wonder if they are in fact human. While I did, from afar of course, admire what they could do, I ended up asking myself if I could have done a tenth of what they did even if I had a hundred years to do it.

Since I retired from the Reserves as a most humble Lt. Colonel, I have to be careful in poking at two men whose rank far outstretched my ending place. Yet old tradition tolerates a bit of “talking in the ranks” and so I feel allowed to tweak two of these human rocketships who seemed just so eager, so keen, and so earnest—like Poindexter made good. One does not imagine these guys chilling on the sofa for a weekend watching football.

Today’s military is superb at teaching not only leadership, but just as importantly, followership. Sometimes you might be in a position to lead, other times to follow. The military takes great pains to instill in its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines the fluidity of the “battle space” and that one can, and should, never depend on there always being clear and concise orders to follow.

For example: I was trained as a pilot. If I were shot down and a squad of Privates, led by a Sergeant, were there to rescue me, I would take what they said as a command—even though I might outrank them. They would lead and I would follow. In turn, put these gents on a military aircraft and the roles would be reversed.

No longer is this just a “military thing” however. Almost all modern corporate structures are now being organized as much horizontally as they are vertically. The old chains of command are as much “sideways” collaborative as they authoritative from the top-down.

Yet at the end of the day someone has to steer the ship and give the orders. The men and women who rise to these positions in both the military and civilian world are savvy, ambitious, well-trained and breathtakingly hard workers. Hollywood films making them out to be dolts are so far from the mark as to be embarrassing.

It is good that these men and are ambitious. After all, would we want to shoulder the responsibilities and sacrifice the time they do? Good for them I say except, and this is a big except, when their quest for rank and status spills the banks of what is required by duty and starts to make life hard for those of us under and around them. They are rocketing around so fast that they can demotivate the average Joe just as easily as they can lead him.

Now I am not saying the following two generals necessarily have crossed that line but I give them as cautionary examples. You see, we average folk have to be very careful that these human rocketships do not mow us over or bring us to think we can do the same and bring us to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. Their drive is so fierce and their achievements are so Olympian that often it is best that we just get out of their way.

General David Petraeus, for example, was in the top 5% of his class at West Point. He took a pre-med class load and excelled. Sports, leadership positions, and all the rest were part and parcel of his education in the confines of a brutal Academy existence.

After graduation, he was off to Ranger School where he was, of course, a distinguished graduate. Immediately set on the fast track to high command, senior officers marveled at his organizational abilities and how everything he touched turned to gold. Oh… naturally, he picked up a Ph.D. from Princeton along the way to pretty much nail down the scholar-warrior gig.

He could run faster than nearly everyone in his command, do with less sleep… ok, you get the idea. He was a superman. Super! No problem leading from the front for him.

Except, that is until it came to his stint as commander of forces in Afghanistan. The story unfolds that he strayed from his ties of marital fidelity with his female biographer (or should I say hagiographer in this case as her praise of him was so fulsome?) and that he passed classified information to her. You can get more details on Wikipedia should you wish, but because of this, his subsequent role as the CIA director was terminated and he was cashiered out of Washington to cool his heels in teaching and consulting positions. How long will he be in the Wilderness? Hard to say as I am not sure anyone is ever permanently banned from Washington D.C.

No doubt Petraeus was one of the most energetic and lead-from-the-front generals in American history. His efforts to try to salvage a seriously bad situation in Iraq in the mid-2000s were bright and far-sighted. One wishes that he had been in charge before we ever invaded, but sadly we cannot turn back the hands of time.

Seeing how fast and how far Petraeus climbed, there is no doubt that he is one of those “11 on the scale of 10” high-energy men. Undoubtedly other equally high-energy men and women loved to work for him, but I, having been hewn from quite average timber, would have felt shredded after the first week. The pace, the hours, the intensity of constantly being “on” and moving upward would have immediately outstripped my, and I suspect a good many others, capabilities.

A dark spot for him is that he ended the careers of a good number of soldiers under his command for doing exactly what he admitted to—conducting an affair and/or not safeguarding classified information. Now as the founder of Just Average Inc. I definitely do not pretend to sit in the seat of judgment regarding anyone else but myself, but it does rather spoil that leadership aura he strove so hard to perfect and then project does it not? We all have feet of clay, but hypocrisy seems to have a stench all of its own…

General Stanley McChrystal was also a West Pointer. Details if you wish but suffice it to say that his career was similar to that of Petraeus’. Ranger and Special Forces schools. Four stars on his uniform, smart, driven, ambitious, great leader and warrior—like no other I have seen etc… Very much in line with all those other ramrod straight gents on high rank—Pershing, McArthur, Westmoreland, etc. Maybe what the Shirelles had in mind when they wrote one of their catchiest tunes: The Shirelles – Soldier Boy

McChrystal himself however, was also shown the door after his command staff in Afghanistan made a number of disparaging remarks about the civilian leadership—you know, that thing that is in charge of the military and all that—including President Obama and his vice Joe Biden. You can more or less get by with that down in the ranks, but not when you wear the stars of a general on your shoulders. We saw this when Truman ejected Douglas MacArthur from command in Korea for his insouciance. Truman’s reason:

“I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President… I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the laws for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.”

So why do I tweak McChrystal? Why do I poke him in the ribs? Well, he claims to run eight miles a day, to eat only one meal, and to get by on four hours of sleep. He gets up at 4 something in the morning to start his workout and all this leads me to ask Seriously?!? You can hear all the frightening details here on Tim Ferriss’ podcast: McChrystal Warning: It really is that frightening if you are of average stock.

Ok, you are fair in asking: “Well, if you don’t like these gents then don’t pay attention to them. Many a soldier would be honored to serve under their command.” True…true…but in life I fight the corner of the average. It would be one thing if we could put such people in a box and let them do their thing—much like Captain Picard solved the Professor Moriarty dilemma on Star Trek: The Next Generation by detaining him in an external memory module.

But the trouble is that these kind of men and women also have many followers and emulators who want to be just and intense as their mentors. The result is a force multiplication so what started with just Petraeus and McChrystal could result in their being twenty more like them! This means that you or I could end up working for someone like them as they move up the ladder. Don’t think there is any pressure on you when your boss rolls into the office at 5:30 in the morning and you think that 9 o’clock is already early enough?

Yet the bottom line is something that I learned in thousands of hours of sitting in an airplane cockpit with a range of personality types—a few who were also extraordinary ambitious. We in the average ranks might not be the doers, the movers, and the shakers of this world but we do have a cherished provenance of contemplation, reflection, and concentration on doing our humble best. Our natures and personalities are their own refuge for us from the world, its climbers, and the pressure to achieve and work more and more. We serve as the balance in life and an important balance it is so we should be proud of the role we play.

I gladly concede Petraeus and McChrystal their greatness—not only concede it, but in many ways admire it. At the same time though, I also recognize the dangers that they present in making a lot of unwilling people part of their quests.

If I, from the bleachers, might give them a bit of advice: If you must be ambitious and earnest and keen in life, then by all means try to relax while doing so and not making it so bloody obvious. Try the British understated way—it comes across as being so much less overweening!