Military training camp

“ And the best part of it is that these “Long Boys,” never having had so much as the A-B-C of military training, make the drollest imitations of real soldiers that ever were. The atmosphere at Headquarters has of late, I gather, been slightly tinged with electricity. But the boys belonging to the older organizations in camp have been enjoying themselves to an unholy degree “stuffing” the new arrivals with ghastly tales of air-raids, gas bombs, and Serial machine-gun barrages.
As in all huts, we have a big map of France tacked to the wall where the boys can have easy access to it. ”

“ Living together in camp made it possible to commence instilling into the men that sense of military discipline which is the first qualification of a soldier, and progress in this direction soon became apparent. At first the training was necessarily on somewhat elementary lines owing to various causes, such as the want of experienced officers and N.C.O.’s, lack of arms and equipment, etc., but in the course of time, as these disabilities became gradually less and the syllabus of training more systematised, there followed marked improvement. ”

“ To make up a set of equipment, to assist in cleaning up camp and loading trucks, to march and fight for a distance of ten or twelve miles while carrying a heavy pack on the back and a nine-pound gun on the shoulder, and upon reaching camp to pitch your tent, make up your bed, do some fatigue work, and probably some guard duty in addition, all in one day, is a hard physical strain on the average man. ”

“ Any citizen who thinks that he has the necessary qualifications and desires to become a reserve officer should apply to the Commanding General of the Department wherein he resides for an application blank and all information pertaining thereto.
You must undergo a course of training in camp. We advise you in the strongest terms to go to camp as soon as possible. There are no short cuts in the military business. The most efficient instruction under the most ideal conditions with the most competent officers, will be found only in camp. ”

“ A husband and father provides for the protection of his family whether at home or abroad. So does the military commander for his command, whether it is an army or a squad; whether it is in camp, on the march, in battle, advancing upon or retreating from the enemy. The end desired is the same in all cases. A study of all the measures adopted by the successful generals in history shows that the means are not very different.
A body of troops in camp is protected (made secure) by the use of groups placed between the enemy and the camp. ”

“ The most thrilling experience you will have at a training camp will probably come when you step up to the firing line on the target range to fire your first shot. The great majority of new men grow pale, become nervous, lose their calm and poise, while they are on the firing line. ”

“ Read this chapter as soon as you decide to attend a Camp.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE
The greatest problem you will have to solve will be that of making your body do the work required. Every one else will be doing exactly what you are doing, and you have too much pride to want to take even a shorter step than the man by your side. Some men have to leave the training camps because they are not in the proper physical condition to go on with the work. ”

“ True-to-life stories of the camp and field in the great war.
1. THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
or Training for the Big Fight in France
Two zealous young patriots volunteer and begin their military training. Together they get into a baffling camp mystery.
2. THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
or Doing Their Bit on Sea and Land
Our soldier boys having completed their training at Camp Sterling are transferred to a Southern cantonment from which they are finally sent aboard a troopship for France. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here ten thousand men come every week from other training camps all over the earth, and are given intensive training. For six days, eighteen and twenty hours a day, these soldiers, trained by many months' labour on other fields, are given the Ph.D. in battle lore, and are turned out the seventh day after a Saturday night lecture on hate, and shot straight up to the front. In all France there is no more grisly place for the weak-stomached man than this training camp—not even the front line trenches will kick up his gorge more sedulously. ”

“ Nearly all national guard infantry needs training for individual men and officers and work in the company, battalion and regiment. When formed in divisions or larger [Pg 126] forces for maneuver campaigns the men in ranks and junior officers get but little instruction. Except a little camp experience, it is chiefly walking, the object of which they know nothing, and most of the officers are not yet ready for this class of work. It is a camp of instruction, not a campaign, they need. They must apply on the ground what they have learned in the armory. ”

“ We have been doing this for a decade with hardly a break. Even those who criticize our tendency to develop individuals are obliged to admit that this continual advance in athletic prowess fosters the spirit of emulation among the masses. Moreover, we are improving in the way of distributing our efforts, and more and more men in schools and colleges come out for physical training and development. We have not by any means perfected the system, but it is on the way. Supplementing this general athletic development comes now the introduction into the curriculum of military drill. ”

“ The great training camp lay, a rain-lashed wilderness of windy levels and bleak, sandy hills, range upon range, far as the eye could see, with never a living thing to break the monotony. But presently, as our car lurched and splashed upon its way, there rose a sound that grew and grew, the awesome sound of countless marching feet. ”

“ All over the country, in this place or that, groups of citizens are trying in a promising way to form definite, practical, little associations for training and defense. Aside from the training-camp movement now so hopefully developed, business men are joining together to try to settle upon uniform ways of coöperating with training camps and the national guard by making it possible for their employees to profit by these and to render national service in this way. ”

“ Due to delay in the turning on of steam heat in the barracks, these extra quilts were particularly welcome. After the hard day’s routine of outdoor drill, the tired soldier boys had on more than one night found their allotted bed covers insufficient against the snapping cold. It was the first real discomfort they had encountered since their enlistment, and the majority of the camp contingent accepted it in the spirit of true veterans.
Veterans they were fast becoming. ”

“ The two months of camp life that follow graduation give cadets plenty of opportunities to enjoy their spare moments. The entire forenoon is taken up with the various kinds of military instruction, with infantry drill, practical military engineering, target practice, artillery drill, equitation, swimming, and what not, but the afternoon is at their disposal from the return of the Battalion from dinner until parade at five-thirty. They have many diversions from which to choose. Close by the camp are five tennis courts for the devotees of the racquet. ”

“ At the training camps our soldiers were on the background of home, and they were not facing death together. They knew their own country by railroad journeys and by living with men from different States; but some observers think that one does not really know his own country until he has seen other countries. The training camp had become a kind of home. Its discipline was modest beside that of France; there were no hardships except the hard drill and routine. In France our soldier had no home. He was always changing his boarding place, though never his task as a fighting man. ”

“ As for the actual camp routine, the training is of the most thorough description. The men look remarkably fit and well-set-up, though suffering almost universally from spring coughs of the most deafening description, as many an instructor and lecturer has discovered to his cost! The officers are immensely hard-working, and it is satisfactory to note that the large number of British and French officers and non-commissioned officers who have been sent over as instructors in artillery, machine-gun, grenade, and bayonet work have made an excellent impression, both professionally and socially. ”

“ Not only must the officers see to it that the food and water are good and the camp kept clean, but he must also have the men's health constantly in mind when he is planning their schedule of training. Moderation is the word. It is possible to be too enthusiastic and do the men more harm than good with hasty training. Exercises should be graduated. It must be remembered that many of the men who will constitute civilian armies are not used to out-of-door life and their training must be gentle. ”

“ For the two years before we entered the war the only important piece of preparedness was that of the men who at their own expense went to the Plattsburg training camp established by General Wood, and when Germany forced us into war it was imperatively necessary at once to establish many additional camps of this kind or we should have had no officers whatever for our army. It is still advisable to keep a few training camps for older men whose age and qualifications especially fit them for certain kinds of service. ”

“ It would be a national loss for me to fail to record in this place a just estimate of the value to the Nation of these training camps for officers. They disclosed an unsuspected source of military strength. Nobody will suppose that, with the growing intricacy of military science and the industrial arts related to it, a country can dispense with trained professional soldiers. ”

“ The government built 16 draft army camps and 16 national guard camps. There were also numerous other military zones where smaller bodies of troops were trained. The draft army camps were located so as to house the men from different sections of the country, as a glance at the list of camps will show:—
Camp Devens, Massachusetts; Camp Upton, New York; Camp Dix, New Jersey; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Lee, Virginia; Camp Jackson, South Carolina; Camp Gordon, Georgia; Camp Sherman, Ohio; Camp Taylor, Kentucky; Camp Custer, Michigan; Camp Grant, Illinois; Camp Pike, Arkansas; Camp Dodge, Iowa ”

“ The second officers’ training camp was opened at Quantico, Va., on August 20, 1918, the enlisted men forming its personnel having been selected in exactly the same manner as those attending the first camp and this procedure was also followed with regard to the Marines of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. ”

“ They consisted of men who had had military experience either in the Regular Army or the National Guard, and men who were graduates of schools and colleges affording military training, and of the training camps which for several years had been maintained at Plattsburg and throughout the country. ”

“ While the operation of these camps and, indeed, the introduction of military drill, have been imperfectly carried out, owing to the lack of suitable state appropriation to carry on the work on the necessary and large scale for a working-boy and schoolboy population of 240,000, it is the intention of the Military Training Commission to insist on the requirements of the law. ”

“ Great training camps sprang up in every State. Invitations were sent to France and Britain for military instructors who could bring to the American people the latest and grimmest lessons of actual warfare. Political Missions began to arrive from Allied countries, and vast crowds on Fifth Avenue were agreeably occupied for some weeks in cheering to the echo embarrassed foreign statesmen in top hats, accompanied by inarticulate Field-Marshals almost too dazed to speak their own language and quite incapable of understanding any other. ”

“ Even as a matter of drill—which to some of our officers seems to be the great end, and not merely the means of a soldier's life—this would have been an advantage. The drill of a camp of instruction is not only monotonous, but meaningless, because neither officers nor men are yet alive to its practical application. Had these men been placed at once where something seemed to depend on their activity, instruction in tactics would have been eagerly sought after, instead of being looked upon as an irksome daily task. ”

“ An entire brigade of sturdy volunteers was already forming and marching out by battalions to their regimental parades, the men showing in their easy stride and elastic carriage the effects of two months’ hard drill and gradually increasing discipline. The regulars were still out in the park, hidden by the dense foliage and busy with their company drills. The adjutant and clerk were at their papers in the big office tent, and only the sentries, the sick and the special duty men remained about the body of camp. ”

“ The annual training in camp will be confined to tactical exercises and fire discipline, &c., except in the case of the Militia, by whom drill may, in addition, in very exceptional circumstances be practised. ”