Recruitment

“ Now, men, you'll likely find it a bit dull here for a day or two. Recruits generally do. Then that will all wear off, and you'll be glad you're in the Army. If there's anything you need to know, ask Corporal Shrimp"—Hal winced inwardly—"or me. The mess call will soon go for dinner. When it does, follow me outside, but take your places in the rear of A Company, which is the recruit company that you now belong to. I'll [68] show you where to stand. New recruits don't march with the battalion—not until they've been drilled enough to know how to march."
"Is there a battalion here, Sergeant?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am sure it would facilitate the recruiting of the army, to give up all undue means to entrap men by plying them with drink, or telling them lies. I am persuaded that there are thousands to whom a military life would be far preferable to what they are employed at—many of whom would enlist, were it not that a suspicion is excited in their minds, that all is not right, by the finessing and over-anxiety displayed by those employed on the recruiting service. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another Method.—Take your recruit, and place him at headquarters. Let him mix freely with all the bad characters that have been carefully kept in the regiment, until his nature has become assimilated to theirs. For three years pay him rather less than a ploughboy's wages, and make [Pg 78] him work harder than a costermonger's donkey. Your soldier having now reached perfection, you will turn him out of the service with economical dressing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, now, the next thing I should like to say is this—and I am only putting purely business considerations before you—the recruiting must be continued in every area under the auspices of men who, in the aggregate, command the confidence of every class of the community. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A recruiting officer bearing a flag and attended by a band of martial music paraded the streets, to excite a thirst for glory and a spirit of military ambition. The recruiting officer possessed the qualifications requisite to make the service alluring, especially to the young. ”

“ There are hundreds of thousands of men and women, with a desire to serve, that cannot go to the training camp. We have throughout the country to-day a splendid expression of the desire to serve.
I believe that every citizen of this republic, male or female, and of any age after childhood, should have a regular scheme of duties, a regular enlistment for service of a definite nature suited to his or her status of capacity, which he must be prepared to render upon demand, and which he or she must keep in training to deliver. ”

“ The dignity with which the recruiting is done is very pleasing, for these officers, uncommissioned though they be, wear their uniforms with the grace of a major-general. When they approach a man, they do so with an air of authority, in a straightforward manner, and although they depict the attractions of the service beguilingly, they seldom attempt to42 gain a recruit against his will. Most of those who loiter about the boards come with their minds made up to enlist, and do not need any great amount of persuasion. ”

“ 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 this state of things, several officers, supposing that commissions and rank might depend on recruiting men, began, without permission, to recruit soldiers, to serve particularly under the officer enlisting them. ”

“ In practice the normal terms are seven years' colour service and five years' reserve service for the infantry, with certain modifications in the case of other arms. Enlistment may be made for general service or for a particular corps, and in the latter case the recruit will be posted to that corps only, and will ordinarily spend his whole service in it. A man desiring to enlist should present himself at a recruiting office, where he will be given a notice setting forth the terms of service. ”

“ The recruit learns his exercise on the authority of his officer, because he is himself ignorant of the art of war. The reasons for the different manoeuvres, he will discover when he comes into action. ”

“ Recruiting.—For recruiting purposes, India is divided into districts, each in charge of an officer, who recruits only for some particular race. All recruiting parties detached from regiments work under his orders, and all candidates for enlistment are brought to him for approval after undergoing medical examination. The number of applicants for service, especially for the Silladar Cavalry, is often in excess of the number of vacancies available. Recruits must be from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. ”

“ You hear the claims of certain staff corps, from time to time, about the necessity for having high-class men for the key positions in their enlisted personnel. Can you show me in any branch of the Army where a high-class man is required any more than he is right here? Here is a doughboy sergeant face to face with a problem, the proper solution of which means more to the success of the operations than any so-called “highly technical” 133position in the back areas. ”

“ When a young man joins the army or the navy he virtually agrees to pocket his pride and submit to a series of insults from his “superior” officers for a term of years. The recruiting officer is to some degree, at least temporarily, a man of pleasant manners, and the callow patriot taking the bait in the recruiting office is treated alluringly. But when the youth signs his name in the books and becomes a soldier patriot, matters take a change. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He describes the raw English recruit, picked out of the gutter, recounts the stages of discipline that make him a good soldier, and finally a reliable non-commissioned officer—a man that, returned to his country, would prove a good and useful citizen. ”

“ Among our last draft of recruits was a newly-joined officer who had been at the military business before. What he liked about us was that we are Territorials, immune from this new "platoon" system. "I like people," he said, "who call half a company a half-company." ”

“ COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, Adjutant-General's Office, Richmond, Va., April 23, 1898. General Orders No. 9.
The commanding officers of such companies as will volunteer for service in the volunteer army of the United States will at once proceed to recruit their respective companies to at least eighty-four enlisted men. Any company volunteering as a body, for such service, will be mustered in with its own officers. ”

“ Hiring or retaining another person to enlist or enter himself in the service of either of the said belligerents as a soldier or as a marine or seaman on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or privateer.
4. Hiring another person to go beyond the limits or jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted as aforesaid.
5. Hiring another person to go beyond the limits of the United States with intent to be entered into service as aforesaid.
6. Retaining another person to go beyond the limits of the United States with intent to be enlisted as aforesaid. ”

“ The fact that the life and death of the men of the regiment is intimately connected with the competency of its officers, is not sufficiently appreciated by the community.
'The Board for the examination of officers of colored troops over which I preside, considers three things as indispensable before recommending a candidate, viz.: A good moral character, physical capacity, true loyalty to the country. A person possessing these indispensable qualifications is now submitted to an examination as to his knowledge of tactics and capacity for command. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The officer who commands the respect of his men does not get nicknamed, and the recruit very soon learns to call his superiors by their proper names when he has occasion to mention superior officers in course of conversation with his comrades.
As a rule, the recruit is subjected to one or more practical jokes by his comrades in his early days as a soldier. In cavalry regiments, a favourite form of joke is to get the recruit to go to the farrier-major for his “shoeing-money,” a mythical33 allowance which, it is alleged, every recruit receives at the beginning of his service. ”

“ Had this been true, it was certainly justifiable to refuse to exchange a trained man for a recruit. All who have seen service know that one old soldier is, in campaign, equal to several who have everything of military life to learn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When all these have been examined, tested, distinguished, defined, and understood, then from the whole word-population, so to speak, just as in war, when a legion has to be enrolled, we not only collect the volunteers but also search out the skulkers of military age, so when there is need of word-reinforcements, we must not only make use of the voluntary recruits that offer themselves, but fetch out the skulkers and hunt them up for service. ”

“ In November 1891 an important change was made in the method of recruiting postmen, with the object of encouraging military service and providing situations for those who after serving in the army or navy are left without employment at a comparatively early age. ”

“ To say that there was no rivalry in this recruiting would be far from the truth, but as each man had his choice of the four companies the officer who could show the greatest advantages succeeded soonest in getting his company filled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But ask any man of consideration, what time it requires to organize an army, or a corps of new recruits—if, owing to the want of a knowledge of the officers to forms of returns, accounts, etc., it will not be some time before a new corps can be as well equipt, or appear as much like soldiers, as an old one? ”