Training 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ America needs sportsmanship in the best sense of the word, and the training camp can give it. America needs the abolition of its foolish class lines, now drawn in industry and in society; emphasized among races and by creeds, and nowhere worse than in the army itself. There is no place for [Pg 179] it in the training camp. American industry has failed to Americanize the foreign-born citizens through its pay envelope; the training camp may succeed through the dog tent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all the naval training camps, stations and schools the utmost effort was made, as in the army training camps, to conserve the physical, mental and moral well being of the young men preparing for sea service. The activities and beneficence of the Army Commission on Training Camp Activities have already been described. Under the same head and working along similar lines the Navy Commission on Training Camp Activities busied itself with the welfare of the men fitting for naval service and provided them with books, sports, lectures, music, theatrical entertainments, moving pictures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After two months’ training in camp, the cadets return to barracks to begin their academic duties. At once, all nonsense ceases, and the new cadet is in no wise interfered with, even in fun. The routine changes completely and the day becomes fuller. Reveille is a half hour later, but the work increases and there are fewer leisure moments.
It is to the more serious and inexorable side of 150 his training that the cadet must now turn. Life in barracks is more sedate, more formal, more cold than the free existence of camp where he and his comrades were living close to Nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The War Camp Community Service came into being to organize the social and recreational facilities of the communities adjacent to the training camps and to furnish the best possible places for the soldiers in their free time. ”

“ Jokeing a side Al if I was running the training camps like Camp Grant back home instead of starting the men off with the regular drills and hikes like they give them now I would stand them under a shower bath with their close on about 1/2 the time and when it come time for a hike I would send them back and fourth across Rock River and back where they wasn't no bridge. And then maybe when they got over here France wouldn't be such a big supprise. ”

“ Now a suspicion which once had flickered in his mind came back with renewed vigor: that a kind of Fate was watching his career. It had steered him safely past the home company, and later had steered through rapids that might easily have dashed him against the first training camp. At present it was pointing to a secret passage of escape from conscription. To-day, he figured rapidly, was the thirty-first of May; the second camp would not open until August the twenty-seventh. Oh, lots of things could happen in three months! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1916 six camps were opened and 16,139 men attended them. At the close of the first Plattsburg camp the business men formed an organization for furthering and extending this training just as the college men had done at Gettysburg two years before. And in 1916 these two organizations consolidated and organized the present Military Training Camps Association of the United States. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We go to a Southern training camp where new units are being formed into which each of us will fit. And along with this news came the announcement that none of us will be given a pass to go home for a last good-bye. This has stirred the men more than 110 the news of the transfer South. Several impromptu indignation meetings were held this morning and this afternoon, just after mess, a real demonstration took place in the mess hall and most of the eighty-seven of us were loud in our assertions that we would go home anyway, even though we were arrested for desertion afterward. ”

“ They caused to descend upon the regiment on December 15th twenty-five officers from the Second Officers' Training Camps. The proportion of first lieutenants made at the second camps was greater than at the first. ”

“ It looks now like the real soldiers that they got here would be here maybe all winter but between you and I Al I got a scheme to beat that game. I found out today that they are going to start a officers training camp here in Jan. and if a man makes good in it they will give him a lieut. or a capt. and they won't be no riff and raff allowed in the camp only men that would make a good officer so I guess I won't have no trouble getting in the camp and once I win my lieut. ”

“ These are usually located in agriculturally strategic sections of the state, where boys may receive preliminary training in camp life and in farm work under disciplinary and instructional conditions. Of course such a camp can do nothing more than give the boys a training in the elements of farm activities (such as harnessing a horse, running a hand cultivator, using a hoe, driving a team) and serve as a trying-out period for weeding out boys who are unsatisfactory. ”

“ The work camp is much the older, dating back to the building of railroads and the opening of lumber districts. In the past decade the recreation summer camps have become a potent factor in secondary-school life, making a complement of the school year's work by laying stress on the physical development of outdoor woodland and country experiences. Some of these camps, while primarily recreational, have had courses in manual training, college preparation, arts and crafts, and languages, yet so clearly is their play nature of chief importance that no one thinks of them as work camps. ”

“ History of the 305th Field Artillery
I
THE REGIMENT IS BORN
When it comes to beginnings, regiments are not unlike humans. They aren't pretty objects, or self-sufficient. They gaze upon the world with inquiring eyes. They address it with lusty and surprised lungs.
We were very much like that, and our first surprises came with our first days, when the men commissioned from the second battery at the first Plattsburg Reserve Officers' Training Camp reported at Camp Upton. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is all in the way work is presented to the boys, whether they will look upon it as a privilege or an irksome task.
9.30 to 11.00
If tutoring is a part of the camp's plan, the morning will be found a desirable time for tutor and boy to spend an hour together. Manual training, instruction in woodcraft, field and track athletics, boating, life-saving drills, rehearsal for minstrel shows or entertainments, photography, tennis, baseball, are some of the many activities to be engaged in during this period. One day a week, each box or trunk should be aired, and its contents gone over carefully. ”

“ By the time they had got back to camp and were training new troops from their own experience, they were the centre of an extraordinary organization.
The rolling of men from camp to battle and back again, training, retraining, and fighting in the circle, with an increasing number of men able to remain in the line, and a constantly increasing number of new men permitted to come in at the beginning, ground out an admirable system before the old year was out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A military training promotes a respect for proper authority, which is the foundation of all thoroughly good citizenship.
But as this is not a lecture on the advantages of the system, we must come to the point—the boy soldier in camp. No doubt the most pleasant as well as the most useful part of the drill life of our militia regiments is the week's encampment at Peekskill. The men come back brown and healthy, and with the satisfaction of having learned something. An encampment of boys can accomplish the same results. ”

“ As the fall set in camp was broken up, and my regiment was to occupy the west block of the permanent barracks, and my reward for the part I had taken during the drill season was promotion to the rank of lance-sergeant, and to my great delight I was occasionally called upon to instruct a squad of recruits.
A very important factor in our training, one of the finest gymnasiums in the world, was near completion and would be ready to receive squads for instruction in a short time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”