Military recruitment

“ Perhaps the real reason for this tenacity is that France, who is so proud of her military traditions, finds it hard to bring herself to dissolve a corps which has been in existence for more than eighty years and which has been led by many a famous general and marshal of France.
It has been suggested that it would be a good idea to change the method of recruiting. Passports should be demanded to make sure that the recruit had not got into trouble with the authorities of his own country. Deserters from the armies of other countries should on no condition be accepted. ”

“ As regards the immediate manpower requirements, the Royal Navy, the Army and the Air Force are in the fortunate position of having almost as many men as they can conveniently handle at this moment. There are, however, certain categories of service in which men are immediately required, both for Military and Civil Defense. ”

“ RECRUITING, a term prefixed to certain corps and districts, which are specifically established for the recruiting service. Hence recruiting districts.
All recruits made for the regular army of the U. States, are inlisted for five years. In almost every service in Europe men are enlisted for a certain number of years, except the British, who inlist for life. Experience has convinced the powers upon the continent of Europe, that the system of binding a man during the whole course of his life to military subjection, is contrary to every sound principle of œconomy, and effective service. ”

“ All the business of preparing for the military registration of 10,000,000 men, of providing quarters and instructors for nearly 50,000 prospective officers, for finding arms and equipment for millions of troops yet to be organized, of expanding the regular army to full war strength, of preparing and recruiting the National Guard for war was at hand. ”

“ Suppose that instead of selecting men merely for their physical quality and their supposed capacity for obedience, the standard of admission to the ranks of the army should be as high as that of admission to West Point. Suppose the Government were to assure the people that the recruits would be treated as well as the cadets at the military or naval academy; in an instant the army might have its choice from a hundred thousand intelligent, well-born, well-bred, honorable, aspiring young men. ”

“ But to train the recruits, and to command such an army when fashioned, would have required a very great corps of professional officers of high military education, many times as large as we had actually raised. ”

“ In the war on terror, our troops are serving with courage and commitment, and their bravery is inspiring others to join them. All of our services met or exceeded their active duty recruitment goals last month, and the troops closest to the fight continue to reenlist in impressive numbers. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are all on track to meet or exceed their reenlistment goals for the year. Our troops know the stakes of this war, and Americans can have pride and confidence in our all-volunteer forces. ”

“ Now, after signing a contract to serve the United States government as a soldier for the required period, our young civilian has become a recruit. Before, however, he is finally admitted, he must undergo a careful physical examination, made by a surgeon. The accepted recruit has his choice of entering the artillery, the cavalry, or the infantry. ”

“ It is the increased military character that it would give to the nation, the greater number of men whom it would familiarize with the use of arms, and render competent to use them effectually at a moment's notice. We believe that short enlistments, and the other improvements already referred to, and which we shall presently speak of at greater length, would produce, in this thickly peopled kingdom, a regular annual supply of recruits, a large proportion of them of a very superior class to those who now offer. ”

“ For the corps of matured officers, required to train recruits and to command them in war when organized in their units, would have had to consist of soldiers, themselves highly trained in military organization, who had devoted their lives to this work as a profession. It takes many years in peace time to train such officers. Because they must be professional, they can only be recruited under a voluntary system. ”

“ An official report shows that on the day the Armistice was signed more than twenty-five per cent of the male population of the United States between the ages of 19 and 31 years, were in military service, the army having reached a total of 3,664,000, with more than 2,000,000 of this number in Europe. ”

“ As we inhabit an island, and hold the command of the sea by an overwhelmingly powerful navy, there was no valid reason to press for any alteration in our time-honoured custom of recruiting the army by voluntary enlistment. ”

“ The logic of war is, learn to obey and ask no questions.
One thing happened which came very near breaking up my troop, and threatened to destroy the regiment itself. It was at that time difficult to get recruits for the regulars. Citizen-soldiers preferred the volunteers. But it was considered important to keep the regiments in the regular army recruited up to the minimum, at least, and an order was issued from the War Department permitting regular officers to recruit from the ranks of the volunteers. ”

“ You have but to see the spirit of our troops and the spirit of the recruits, disappointed because their offers to serve in the army are rejected. We do not need every recruit now, and as we do take new men, there are hundreds of thousands more, ready to serve the Fatherland—to the end. ”

“ In Great Britain the whole recruiting has been placed under the immediate direction of the adjutant-general since 1802. For this purpose, the country has been divided into recruiting districts, at the head of which is placed an inspecting field-officer with the duty of superintending all recruiting parties in his district, and of approving the recruits brought. Staff-officers and sergeants of the Pensioner Force are also occasionally intrusted with the obtaining of recruits. The United States recruiting service is conducted by the adjutant-general, under the direction of the Secretary of War. ”

“ Perhaps a way will yet be found to gratify them and to give a still greater impetus to their recruiting, as the capacity to fashion special weapons to secure special ends is always the forerunner of success in peace or in war. Even under the present system enthusiastic recruits are coming in. ”

“ But adding troops isn’t just about meeting a quota. It’s about recruiting the best and brightest to service, and it’s about keeping them in service by providing them with the first-rate equipment, armor, training, and incentives they deserve. ”

“ RECRUITING—APPLICANTS, REJECTIONS, ENLISTMENTS—ENLISTMENTS BY STATES.
The recruiting service of the corps was enlarged greatly during the war and it was so well organized and its method of procedure was so efficient that it was able to stand the enormous increase of the corps. The real test of any organization comes when a very great increase is suddenly made and the recruiting service of the Marine Corps passed that test in a commendable manner. ”

“ Yet in spite of this treatment,—which is virtually [Pg 19] a breach of contract by the Government, since the recruit is led to suppose on his enlistment that he is to be a soldier and not a hod-carrier,—in spite of his rarely being taught his profession, or shown how to become skilled in arms or horsemanship, the American soldier is subordinate, quick to obey, ready in expedients, uncomplaining, capable of sustaining great fatigue, brave and trustworthy in action. ”

“ Officers, carefully selected from those who left the United States Army, or who had received military education elsewhere, were promptly sent to all points in the South, to urge and hasten the organization of troops; to forward those already raised to points where they might be most needed; and to establish recruiting stations and camps of instruction. The captured arsenals were put in working order, new ones were started, depots for clothes, ordnance and medicines were prepared ”

“ The outbreak of war made it essential that the corps should be filled as far as practicable with officers who had had prior military experience and training, and immediate steps were taken to arrange for the designation and examination of Marine Corps warrant officers, noncommissioned officers, graduates of military colleges, and other civilians with military experience and training. ”

“ The urgent call of the recruiting posters and the press had, in the earlier stages of the war, supplied all the volunteers which could be utilized. It took much longer to prepare equipment and facilities than to get men 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. [Pg 172] 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. ”

“ Your Excellency has no doubt considered that the class of men who are willing to become soldiers is much diminished by the war, and therefore the difficulties of raising an army equal to former establishments has increased, and will continue to increase, and embarrass the States in their measures for filling up their quotas, should the mode of recruiting the army be continued in the present line. ”

“ I have been trying to make you understand the difference between soldiers and raw recruits. A raw recruit is of no more use in the trenches of France than a left-handed blacksmith in a watchmaker's shop — strong and willing, but liable to smash things. ”

“ The great body of the male population is thus brought into military service. There are a few exceptions, such as the only sons of indigent parents, and a small number of men who are in excess of the force required. Any man who escapes the draft for three successive years, and all able-bodied men exempted for any cause from service in the regular army, are incorporated in the reserve. The term of service in the regular army is two years for the infantry and three for the artillery and cavalry. ”

“ In the Boer War, during the first three months I think the increase in the number of recruits was 10,000 or 15,000, and during the whole of the war, from the beginning to the end, the increase in the number of recruits amounted to 20,000 or 30,000 a year to the Regular Army. You have never had anything like this, and, therefore, the ordinary machinery for the moment must be a little choked and paralysed. The recruiting sergeant is in the habit of getting his men with difficulty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The enlistment law should be radically changed to get the best results for training, general efficiency and preparedness for war.
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, [Pg 170] these furloughs to cease and the men to rejoin. ”

“ The regular army, almost disbanded at the beginning of the war, was gradually filling up upon the basis of a new organization and long enlistments, but it was idle, it seemed to me, to expect that the young men of the country would enlist in the regular service. ”

“ This new and more constitutional mode of recruiting the army, would bring into its ranks, and in a manner so little objectionable, such a different description of men, and would so vastly increase the respectability of the service, and give such a high tone of national, and also local interest and feeling to our regiments (for they ought ever after to be kept up by men from the same districts) , that the idea of subjecting such soldiers, who could no longer be considered as mere mercenaries, to the corporal punishment of flogging, should, I trust, be abandoned. ”

“ THE WAY OF THE RECRUIT The way of the recruit, though still a hard one, is not so hard as it used to be, for, especially in the cavalry and artillery, various modifications have been introduced by which the youngster is broken in gradually to his work. ”

“ In 1862, men who had seen a year’s active service were selected to receive a part of the commissions issued to new organizations, and should in justice have received all within the bestowal of governors. But the recruiting of troops soon resolved itself into individual enlistments or this programme;—twenty, thirty, fifty or more men would go in a body to some recruiting station, and signify their readiness to enlist in a certain regiment provided a certain specified member of their number should be commissioned captain. ”