Civilian life

“ Further, the voluntary system makes of life in the ranks a totally different thing from civilian life. In conscript armies the discipline to which men are subjected makes their life different from that of23 their civilian days, but not to such an extent as in the voluntary British Army. ”

“ And thus it comes to pass that a civilian has no difficulty in obtaining and keeping his native servants, provided that he treats them with reasonable kindness and due consideration for their shortcomings towards himself. ”

“ If they assumed an air of superiority to the rest of the service, so much the more did they look down upon the mere civilian, whom they considered as belonging to a very subordinate class and order of mankind. To mark the sense of this difference of condition in a hundred little ways, and by a hundred petty observances, was part of a military education, and became a more unerring test of the soldier in society, than even the cockade and the cross-belt. ”

“ They introduced us to the greater part of the officers, and, though living in camp fashion, did not fail to take in the strangers after the ancient, not the modern, acceptation of the term. It is a sensible pleasure, which every military man has remarked, to exchange the common run of civilian for soldier society in the United States. ”

“ The civilian is engaged in building up and sustaining society in doing good, through his active employment, to his fellow-man. But military and naval officers do not produce any thing; they only protect and defend. ”

“ There are two classes of men in our cities and larger towns who, more than almost any others, need daily and systematic bodily exercise, in order to make them efficient for their duties, and something like what men in their lines ought to be. In times of peace they do in many ways what the army does for the whole country in war-time—they protect life and property. These are the police and firemen. ”

“ The officers and soldiers walk off at once and the queue of civilians waits. One civilian with a white card, who belongs to no regiment, who is not even a chaplain or a nurse, puzzles the landing- officer for a moment. ”

“ THE BRITISH ARMY CHAPTER I
THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE—TO 1100 All nations have passed, more or less, through the same stages in the up-growth of that military system which is as essential to the political security of the mass as the formation of a police force is necessary for the protection of the individual in civil life. From the outset, the history of human existence has been one of combat. ”

“ Everything is made so clear that the benighted civilian of the anti-West Point sort, the fearfully and wonderfully bepistoled swashbuckler of the frontier, the gilded whiskey-soldier of the National Guard and even the self-taught strategist of the press can comprehend it all without a special revelation from Heaven. ”

“ From the hour of enlistment to the hour of return, the United States soldiers and sailors have had with them, throughout the war, the advantage of intelligent, sympathetic help from various civilian organizations, co-ordinating with the military. ”

“ Bodies of civilians, however courageous and well drilled, would be ill calculated to bear the hardships and fatigues of a soldier’s life; nor could they be relied upon, even as a matter of numbers: a rainy night or two in the open fields, and occasional short supplies of food, would thin their ranks prodigiously. ”

“ Ambulances and oxen, pack-mules and ammunition-wagons, officers' spare horses mounted by runaway negro servants, every species of the impedimenta of camp-life, commissary sergeants on all-too-slow mules, teamsters on still-harnessed team-horses, quartermasters whose duties are not at the front, riderless steeds, clerks with armfuls of official papers, non-combatants of all kinds, mixed with frighted soldiers whom no sense of honor can arrest, strive to find shelter from the murderous fire. ”

“ He was a strict disciplinarian, and perhaps did not distinguish sufficiently between the volunteer who "enlisted for the war" and the soldier who serves in time of peace. One system embraced men who risked life for a principle, and often men of social standing, competence, or wealth and independence of character. ”

“ Here, the civilian, man as well as woman—no matter how well clad he or she may be—must turn aside for strutting officer and also, as for that, for the common soldier, and all traffic must hold back to let a company of soldiery pass by, even though they are out only on errand of trivial exercise. ”

“ The civilian in the United States boasts of his military institutions, his West Point and his regular army, and never fails to inform a stranger that it is better paid than any force in Europe. On the other hand, he prides himself upon, as he is probably identified with, the militia. ”

“ The complete change of life experienced by thus suddenly adopting the soldier’s daily routine and hard fare, the living with and fraternising with soldiers, the feeling that you are for the time being actually paid as a soldier, that you are watched by military police lest you should desert, that the Mutiny Act has been read over you, which says that if you disobey your officer you shall be shot—all this is calculated to make the most light-hearted Volunteer feel that he is in earnest at last. ”

“ It should be a great educational institution, training every enlisted man to be an officer in the Reserve, or to be a Homecrofter after he returns to private life. Daily manual constructive labor should be a part of every soldier's duty. ”

“ In their tranquil enjoyment of the blessings which the country derives from the industry and the enterprise of the agriculturist and the trader, its happy inhabitants may be supposed not often to reflect on the perilous duties of the soldier and the sailor,—on their sufferings,—and on the sacrifice of valuable life, by which so many national benefits are obtained and preserved. ”

“ Ah, well, common sense would reach even the Army some day, and the soldier be treated and disciplined as a man and a citizen—and perhaps, when it did, and the soldier gave a better description of his life, the other citizen, the smug knave who despises him while he shelters behind him, will become less averse from having his own round shoulders straightened, his back flattened and his muscles developed as he takes his part in the first fundamental elementary duty of a citizen—preparation for the defence of hearth and home.... Lucille! ”

“ Our Nation depends on the dedication of these citizen-soldiers, and our Guardsmen and Reservists rely on the support of their civilian employers to allow them to fulfill their service obligations. During National Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Week, we honor the sacrifice of these brave men and women, and we express our gratitude for the commitment of their employers. ”

“ On the other hand, the army, instead of being thinned by desertions, transportations, and feigned diseases, would each year give up from its ranks a number of young and able-bodied men, who, whilst entering upon the occupations of civil life, would in a great measure retain their soldierly qualities, and be ready, in case of an emergency, to stand forward successfully in defence of their homes and families. ”

“ To work out the plans for such service for men and women alike, whether in motor corps, red cross camps, health service, or in many other ways, may well be the charge of citizens’ defense organizations, but they should be related to the civilian training camp to maintain standards and methods and unity. ”

“ Often they arrive, many of them, to strike hands with the military authorities in the task which faces our nation on Continental soil. There is room and a welcome in France, in Italy, in England and in Flanders for every civilian recruit who really knows how to do something helpful and who has the strength, the self-reliance and the hardihood to perform that particular function under difficult and complicated conditions, which nearly always are physically uncomfortable and which may become physically dangerous. ”

“ Other kinds of service may be secured in other ways, but the faithful discharge of military duties, in the moment of life and death on the battle-field, can only come through the officers’ loving their men as their own children, and the men’s respecting their officers as their own parents. ”

“ But the fact is that, especially during the last twenty years, there has been a steady improvement, and we venture to assert that to-day, so far as his moral conduct is concerned, the average soldier is quite equal, if not superior, to the average civilian. ”

“ I've been typing a long correspondence about a civilian—a worker in one of the religious organizations who came into the town, ten miles by train, to get stores he wanted for his hut. The rule is, civilians mustn't travel by train without a movement order from the A.P.M.; there isn't an A.P.M. in the place he comes from, so he went to the military and got an ordre de service. He came all right, but it's irregular—an ordre de service should only be given to a soldier. One of the M.P.'s on duty at the station reported it—and there's been strafing and strafing and strafing. ”

“ The usual wartime security procedures apply with special force to psychological warfare operations. Civilian employees who are qualified as political experts, as writers, or as propaganda analysts are often well-educated and artistic. ”

“ I feel assured that a system of discipline, subordination, and police has been established in the army, which reflects much credit upon its General, and does no less honor to the officers and soldiers than to our country. ”

“ Such an officer should, by all means, be a civilian, of approved character, of much and tried experience in the management of criminals, and of a sufficiently enlarged and expansive mind to be capable of applying to that important branch of the public service all the improvements of the present enlightened age, whether derived from British, continental, or American experience. ”

“ Why, dear me, sir, don't you know those are harmless civilians, who neither wish to shoot any one or to be shot at themselves?{328} They are civil engineers and civilians belonging to your recently formed Army Works Corps. ”

“ I can only hope that, when full civilian administrators return to these areas, they will be able to provide the same level of commitment as senior officers as well as small platoons have shown to the villagers in their care. ”

“ Their problems are more complex than those of any soldiery; they deal with fifty different nationalities, and are forced by circumstances to act as judge and jury, as firemen, as life savers, as directories, as arbiters of neighborhood squabbles and domestic wrangles. ”

“ And the manifold needs of a host undreamed of by the wildest, wickedest ‘militarists,’ demanded the existence of that other army chiefly congregated at the Base: doctors, nurses, chaplains, ambulance folk, owners of private cars, and those sorrowful birds of passage—relations of dying or dangerously wounded men. ”

“ Role of the civilian population and of aid societies 1. The civilian population shall respect the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, even if they belong to the adverse Party, and shall commit no act of violence against them. ”

“ For a soldier, nowadays, enjoys equally with the civilian, who by his vote contributes to prevent or promote hostilities, the greater facilities afforded by the spread of knowledge for the exercise of his judgment ”

“ Any officer or soldier, or any particular corps, distinguishing themselves by any acts of bravery and courage, will assuredly meet with notice and rewards; and, on the other hand, those who behave ill will as certainly be exposed and punished: the general being resolved, as well for the honor and safety of the country as of the army, to show no favor to such as refuse or neglect their duty at so important a crisis. ”

“ The Federal soldier returning home to a land of plenty, his necessities anticipated by benevolent associations, his spirits cheered by the sympathy of a grateful people, and his services rewarded with bounties and pensions by a generous Government, found leisure and encouragement to recount his sufferings and privations to eager listeners, and the air was filled with cries for vengeance on his jailors. ”

“ Laying aside the punctilio of the soldier, I shall endeavour to discharge my duty to society, considering myself only as the citizen, reduced to the melancholy necessity of taking up arms for the public safety. ”

“ Whether your intention of hanging me and those of my staff and other officers who were engaged in organizing the 1st S. C. Volunteers, in case we are taken prisoners in battle, will be likely to benefit your cause or not, is a matter mainly for your [Pg 160] own consideration. For us, our profession makes the sacrifice of life a contingency ever present and always to be accepted ”

“ They hurried to their mobilization posts, donned uniforms and equipment, and were shipped away in regiments to the front. Most of them did not worry about the possibility of death, but acted like all healthy human beings, ignoring what they could not affect, caught up in the novelty and the requirements of the new life. ”

“ Section6.In the arrondissements where the martial law is in operation, the military authorities have the same powers as the civilian authorities in regard to the policing or for the maintenance of order. The civilian authorities must assist in the military service as required by the military. ”

“ I may safely add, that in the strict discipline which is absolutely indispensable in every efficient man-of-war, and under all the circumstances of confinement, privation, and other inevitable hardships to which both officers and men are exposed, such a course of moderation and good-breeding, independently of its salutary effect on the minds of the people, works most admirably for the public service, and more than doubles the results, by rendering men, who otherwise might have been disposed to retard the duty, sincerely zealous in its advancement. ”