as last week.
Estimating distance as last week.
Remainder of time teaching men
brush work, hurdle revetment,
fascines, etc.
4 to 5 Same as last week.
7 School.
Saturday, formal inspection by
company.
7th Week—The Company.
[Sidenote: 7th week
Company]
A. M. As last week except that time
7 to 11 given to close order may be reduced
DRILL to 15 minutes daily.
7 to 11 At least two days must be given
DRILL to maneuver of company against
company.
All the men must fire 20 shots during
the week at gallery practice at
such times as found practicable
without interfering with the prescribed
program.
P. M. Monday. Outpost, company as a
1 to 5 support.
Friday. Practice march with instruction
in patrolling, advance
and rear guard, and attack and
defense, either one company to
work against another or enemy
to be outlined.
Estimating distance drill while
out. Men must not march more
than 10 miles nor less than 6.
Packs will be carried.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
1 to 3-30 Patrolling at least once during
week by each non-commissioned
officer as leader.
Remainder of time to brush work,
filling and piling sand bags, making
loopholes and intrenching.
P. M. Drill in dark as training for night
9 to 10 work.
School as last week.
Saturday, formal inspection by
company.
8th Week—Battalion.
[Sidenote: 8th week
Battalion]
A. M. Drill by Battalion. Not more
7 to 11 than one hour of this time per day
should be devoted to close order.
Gallery practice, same as last
week.
P. M. Tuesday and Thursday.
1 to 5 March and instruction by battalion
similar to that by company
last week. Distance marched
about 10 miles.
Monday.
1 to 5 Tent pitching and making camp,
including the large tents.
Wednesday and Friday.
1 to 3-30 Field engineering.
Work same as last week.
9 to 10 Night drill.
6 Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
battalion dress parade. Each battalion
once during week. School
as usual.
Saturday morning, battalion review
and inspection.
[Sidenote: 9th week
target
practice]
9th Week. Target practice on the range
with ball cartridges.
If the pits are not large enough so that each company can have three
targets, only part of the companies should go at a time so as to give
that number of targets. It should be completed by end of 9th week and
may have had to come earlier for some companies.
If the range is right at the instruction camp it would be much better
to have the companies shoot only a couple of hours a day beginning
with 7th week and reduce the other instruction by that much, but so
that at the end of the 9th week the work accomplished is the same.
10th Week.
[Sidenote: 10th week]
A. M.
7 to 11 Battalion drill all but 15 minutes
daily, extended order work. Battalion
against battalion at least twice.
P. M. Monday, battalion outpost instruction.
1 to 5
Wednesday, march by battalion
with packs. Instruction as before.
Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to
5 and Friday from 1 to 3 instruction
by company. Gallery practice,
pointing and aiming and
estimating distance, each once.
Bayonet work for one hour. Wall
scaling once. Two patrol problems
for each non-commissioned
officer. Balance of time field engineering
work as before.
Friday 9 to 10 P. M. Night drill
by battalion.
Battalions in turn have battalion
dress parade on Monday, Tuesday
and Thursday.
Saturday morning battalion review
and inspection.
School, 7 P. M.
11th Week.
[Sidenote: 11th week]
Regimental work. Colonel uses it to best advantage.
One afternoon practice march. Regimental dress parade 4 evenings.
School, 7 P. M. as before.
Saturday, regimental review and inspection.
12th Week.
[Sidenote: 12th week practice march]
A seven days’ practice march under war conditions with as much
instruction as possible in field service, care of men, especially the
feet, and of course in loading wagons, making and breaking camp.
Marches, especially the first two or three, must not be long.
13th Week.
[Sidenote: 13th week]
Work each forenoon from 7 to 11-30 in what, by careful observation,
the colonel finds is most needed.
No work in the afternoon except as follows:
Each man to have gallery practice once, ten shots. Each man to
estimate distance once. Companies to have bayonet work for at least
two half-hour periods each week and pointing and aiming drill once
for some length of time.
Dress parade by regiment three times during week.
Regimental review and inspection Saturday.
School as usual.
[Sidenote: Results of training]
This regiment can be used at the end of this three months. It will
not be completely nor even well trained but it is believed to be the
best that can be done in that time.
Can we have even this much time without great sacrifice and loss?
It is very doubtful, and yet it is not believed practicable to use
volunteers with less training except in fortifications.
The work has been very strenuous for all; the weaklings will have
been eliminated. Any one fit for a soldier in war could have stood
the strain, and the others had better be eliminated before taking the
field.
If at the end of our 13th week we find we have more time, the work
for the week following should be reduced to three hours per day and
the schools, after that we may resume the long days of work.
XI
RECRUITING
The method of recruiting has a decided influence on effective
training. It is much harder to train a company whose recruits dribble
in a few at a time than one, all of whose recruits for the year come
in at once.
[Sidenote: When recruits should join]
The best results can be obtained if these recruits can all be had in
the fall. As stated before, the course of instruction should run from
November 1st to October 31st. In the indoor season all that part of
the instruction course that can be given, should be. It should be
preparatory to the outdoor work. The foundation of sound training
should be laid during this season; the recruit can then be given
his elementary instruction and be ready to begin the outdoor work
with the company. The outdoor season is none too long in which to
go through properly the whole course of work that should be taught
outside.
If recruits are received late in the spring or summer they are not
prepared to do the work with the company, they get only part of it
and that in a way that does not give good results. It is like trying
to teach Algebra first, then Arithmetic. Another drawback to this
method is that it results in the captain’s not having all his company
for this outdoor work. Our present peace strength is so low that
correct training in parts is difficult and when much below this the
training is very imperfect.
[Sidenote: Recruit depots]
Most, if not all, good captains very much prefer to have their
recruits directly on enlistment to having them go to a depot for
several weeks. The training they receive in these depots, in value,
is out of all proportion to the time spent. In their companies, from
the very start, while learning the recruit drill they are learning
much else of value. The recruit is better off and more contented. In
his company there is a personal feeling for him and interest in him
not found at the depot.
The instruction and ways of doing things first learned are those of
his company, not always the case at the depot. The few movements
taught at the recruit depots must be taught exactly right if precise
close order drill is to be had, it is harder to change a recruit’s
ways of doing anything than to teach him the right way from the
start. It has been suggested that if the depots are kept up, all
drill thereat except callisthenics be prohibited.
Recruits dribbling in, waste effort. It is as much bother to a
company to train and get one recruit into the company as a squad of
eight. The large number of men held at these recruit depots would
give a very desirable increase in strength to our companies if we
could have them. The vaccinations that are attended to at the depots
could just as well be done at the posts.
[Sidenote: Plan of recruiting]
The following is offered as a plan of recruiting that it is believed,
would improve that branch of the service and greatly improve the
training of our infantry:
All recruiting stations and recruit depots in time of peace to be
abolished.
Each regiment in the U. S. to be assigned a permanent district
within which its recruits are to be found. The regiment may never be
stationed inside this district but its recruits are all to come from
there.
Early in November of each year, each regimental commander to select a
few recruiting parties composed of an officer and three or four men
from his regiment to beat up this district for recruits. They should
visit the small towns as well as have stations in the larger ones.
Before enlistment the recruits to be physically examined by a doctor,
either of the Medical Corps or one hired in the district.
These recruits are to be sent directly to their regiments in
detachments as enlisted and their training commenced.
As there are many young men who will not enlist for service in the U.
S., but do want to go on foreign service, each home regiment will, in
addition to getting its own recruits, be given the task of getting
a certain number for the Philippines, Hawaii and Panama, the number
being allotted by the War Department. Men reënlisting should be sent,
as far as practicable, to foreign service. These latter will be sent
to designated posts and held long enough to be properly equipped,
vaccinated, etc., and then be sent to their regiments.
Large cities like New York and Chicago should not be assigned to a
single regiment but three or four regiments to have stations there
and part of the outlying districts to be theirs to beat up.
These recruiting parties to remain out until they have completed
their quotas then to return to their stations, but never later than
February 1st.
[Sidenote: Advantages of plan]
This plan offers several advantages and some disadvantages, but is
believed to be an improvement.
Its advantages are:
All the recruits of the company come in at one season and that the
best one.
They come directly to the company on enlistment.
Companies can be larger without increasing strength of army.
The officer enlisting them belongs to the regiment as does his
recruiting party and will exercise more care to get only suitable men.
The recruiting will be more widely distributed and as the men go back
to their homes knowledge of the service, and trained men in case of
war, will be generally distributed.
Fewer men from the slums of the big cities and more from small towns
and rural districts.
The men of a regiment coming from one locality, year after year,
a friendly feeling for the regiment should be built up and future
recruiting assisted and, in case of a great war, every section will
have its nucleus of trained men.
Discipline will be improved and desertion diminished. The men will
realize that their comrades are from their home section and people at
home will know of their misdeeds. Besides it is pleasanter for the
men to serve with those they have known before.
It cannot be asserted without a trial that this method will be
cheaper than the present one but the author believes it will be.
To send out these recruiting parties will be a considerable expense
but to offset this there is the cost of the present recruiting
stations for rent, the difference in the cost of commutation paid
and actual cost at posts, the travelling expenses incurred sending
recruits to depots, often in an opposite direction from that to their
future posts, the costs of keeping up these depots, a large amount,
the loss of the service of all the recruiting personnel for any other
valuable purpose during the year as well as the cost for the time
lost in training of all the recruits.
The recruiting parties sent out by the regiments are taken from
trained men at the season when they can be best spared and probably
they would be absent but for a relatively short time.
If this plan be adopted the method will work better each year.
The men who have gone back, and even those in the ranks, can and
will help in the recruiting, and as the number of these increase
recruiting will be more easily and quickly done. Each village will
know that the party will visit it at a certain season and many will
be ready at once.
It will be more expensive the first year or two than afterwards. The
saving on deserters should be large after the first two or three
years.
[Sidenote: Discussion of objections]
There are two apparent objections. That there will be no large
number of recruits in hand to be sent to particular regiments in an
emergency. This is of small consequence. Where the regiment is wanted
for a sudden emergency, the adding of a large number of raw recruits
is of no immediate advantage.
Suspending recruiting February 1st may result at first in some
regiments not being filled up but this is doubtful. Most of our
original enlistments at present are made in winter, and this would be
offset, if it does occur, by the other advantages enumerated.
Convenience of administration and keeping records should have no
weight as against efficient training for action, the only reason for
our army’s existence.
[Sidenote: Possible modification]
If the infantry cannot have the above system the following
modification would improve matters.
Each company to receive recruits but once during the year, each in
its turn and regiments as nearly at one time as practicable. The
recruits to be sent out within one week of their receipt at the
depots except those for foreign service. If the peace strength of
the companies be kept at 65, when the company is assigned recruits
it should be filled to a strength of 80 it will then average about
65 for the year possibly a few more. It is not believed the total
enlisted strength of the army would be increased at all. It would
amount to having the men with companies instead of in recruit depots.
The above will enable the captains to do much better training and
greater efficiency will result.
Of course those who receive their recruits in October or November
would have a great advantage over the others but all could do better
work.
Recruits enlisted in summer could be held much longer than others and
then, about September 1st, sent to the regiments stationed in the
tropics. It is more comfortable for the recruits if they can reach
those stations in the fall and get their first hard drills and become
acclimated while weather conditions are most favorable. This would
give the regiments at home their recruits at a favorable season if
not the best for all of them.
[Sidenote: Need for a change of system]
Either of the above changes can be made by a change in regulations
and orders.
With our great population and military needs and very small army it
is folly not to use what army we have so as to be as well prepared
for war as conditions permit.
In the preceding chapter it has been shown how important it is that
we have some trained men for every new regiment. We must have trained
men to fill the regular army which must bear the brunt of the first
attack.
The present law does not provide this. The enlistment law should
be radically changed to get the best results for training, general
efficiency and preparedness for war.
[Sidenote: Enlistment law]
All men should enlist for 5 years. At the end of one year’s honest
and faithful service, except when serving beyond the limits of the
U. S., the man should, on his application, be granted a furlough for
the remaining four years; if war breaks out, or becomes so imminent
as to call for mobilization, these furloughs to cease and the men to
rejoin. The men to have the privilege of remaining on in the service
if they so desire and of taking their furloughs at the end of any
completed year of service. Discharges not to be given the men until
the end of their full five years. Hence these men can not reënlist in
another organization while on furlough, and there can be no doubt of
their status and liability for punishment as deserters if they fail
to rejoin when called.
[Sidenote: Men on furlough]
For the present, men should not be _required_ to take the furlough
and reënlistment should not be prohibited, but remaining in service
with the colors over two years in time of peace should not be
encouraged; later, if found practicable to get sufficient recruits,
reënlistment for all, except non-commissioned officers and certain
mechanics who first enlist after that date, should be prohibited.
Men who have enlisted with the understanding that they can remain in
service until retired, provided they behave themselves properly and
are physically fit, should be honestly treated; they have an implied
contract at the least.
Time on furlough not to count for retirement or increase of pay, and
men on such furlough not to be counted in strength of company.
Recruits on foreign service should have the privilege of the furlough
only after two years service, and men with regiments in the U. S. who
wish to remain in the service, after one year’s service should be
encouraged or required to transfer to foreign service for the next
two years.
Men whose service in their first year has not been satisfactory and
who are not fairly trained should be required to serve two years
before being granted a furlough. The law should also provide that
men, whose conduct is found unsatisfactory by a board of officers and
the finding is approved by the colonel, may be furloughed at any time
after two years service whether the man desires it or not.
It is believed the plan would work if no pay were given men on
furlough, but if each be paid ten dollars each six months on
reporting his address by mail to the adjutant of the post it would
help in finding him when wanted and might be an inducement to some to
enlist.
An effort should be made to get young men as recruits. Boys of
eighteen or over if physically strong should be encouraged to
enlist. Young men are easier to train and for a longer time
afterwards are available for service.
We need a reserve but no men should be enlisted directly for it. The
reserve for the regular service should be our men on furlough. Men
too long out of service and advanced in years are not what is needed
for the regular service which must be ready at short notice to face
serious war.
[Sidenote: Reasons for enlistment plan]
The reasons for the foregoing recommendations as they appear to the
author are:
1. Five years is as long as the average man is willing to pledge
his future for military service unless he means to make it a life
occupation. The latter class is not the best for the government.
Young men are the best for the ranks in time of war. Men who serve
only long enough to be trained for the work are to be desired. It
results in a much greater number of trained men being available in
time of war and is much cheaper, for it reduces current pay and the
retired list.
2. The great importance of having as many trained men as possible and
having them dispersed through the country to help in the formation of
the new regiments at the outbreak of war is apparent to any one who
thinks on this subject.
3. If recruits be received during the winter months only, the
organizations can follow a prescribed course of instruction and
complete it annually. If recruits dribble in throughout the year a
proper course of instruction cannot be satisfactorily given in that
time.
4. At the outbreak of war, it is of vital importance that we have as
strong a force as possible of men fully ready trained and equipped.
The losses at first in this force will be heavy. If green recruits,
enough to fill the regular organizations to war strength and to make
good the early losses, be poured in on them they will cease to be
trained organizations. A reserve is a necessity. This will provide it
at small cost.
5. Many excellent and patriotic young men are willing to serve a
short time in the army for the experience and training. Four years,
however, is longer than they are willing to postpone settling down
to their real life’s work. These are the men it is most desirable to
get into the army, not as professional soldiers, but as a trained
reserve for war. For the first years they are a reserve for the
regular companies, then they become available for officers or
non-commissioned officers of volunteers. This class of young men
will enlist much more freely when they can do so and lose only one
year from civil pursuits.
6. Enlisting men as young as they are physically fit interferes less
with their civil careers, hence will get us more desirable recruits.
The physical and mental discipline a boy thus gets will help him
in his future work and the younger he gets it, so long as it does
not interfere with his schooling, the more it will be worth to him.
Taking the recruit young, the five years while his military service
is with the regulars are the five best for that purpose. Later when
older, more developed mentally and matured in judgment he is best in
higher rank than private with the volunteers. If he enters at 18 he
is available at 23 for the volunteers or national guard and has at
least seven years left in which he can be considered at his best.
7. The provision for letting men out at the end of one year, provided
their conduct has been good and they are fairly instructed, will be
a great aid to discipline and a preventative of desertion. A good
many young men enter the service thoughtlessly and find after a few
weeks that the life is different from what they expected. They look
ahead to over three years more of it and the weak ones desert.
They are not vicious nor criminal as a rule but this step injures
them seriously; they become prisoners or fugitives, and either will
decrease the man’s moral stamina and self respect. This provision
will greatly reduce this. The man will see that he has only to behave
himself for the rest of the year to return to civil life with a clean
record. The great expense resulting from desertion will be largely
eliminated. The men will be more contented, they will feel they can
leave in a short time if they wish, which will tend to decrease the
desire to quit. This does not prevent those staying in the service
who wish to do so. A few old soldiers are desirable.
Less than one year’s training is not sufficient in which to cover
properly the course the infantry soldier should have. Two years is
necessary to make a good job of it. But we need more men who can be
used in war. With some thoroughly trained men in the ranks it is
believed better to have 100 others of one year’s training than fifty
of two or more.
[Sidenote: Enlistments for the national guard]
The national guard should have the same period of five years for
enlistment with a provision for inactive service, except in war,
after two years of service, unless the man has had service in some
other organization, as a college battalion. Less than two years is
not enough training to be of value where so little time per year is
devoted to it.
While it has nothing to do with training, there is another provision
that should be in the enlistment law; that is, that every man who
enlists for five years, and is in service when war breaks out, shall
be liable for service for at least one year thereafter no matter
when his term expires. At the outbreak of a great war is no time to
discharge trained men.
XII
IN CONCLUSION
[Sidenote: Relative values]
Time is wasted at most posts on some things that are of little value
compared with the time spent on them.
“Butt’s Manual” is fine callisthenic drill and at proper times should
be practiced. It would be just as valuable and even more so if,
instead of having the men learn to go through it all without command,
an instructor gave the movements and the men executed them purely for
physical drill. The cadence amounts to little, but executing them so
as to exercise properly the desired muscles is important.
Many captains spend a great deal of time practicing this so that
their companies can go through the whole series without command and
to music. It is pretty, and for the chorus in a musical comedy act
might be a success, but for soldiers it is a waste of valuable drill
time that could and should be put to better use.