Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 190, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1917 — TRAINED MEN TO COMMAND ARMY [ARTICLE]

TRAINED MEN TO COMMAND ARMY

Regular Officers to Be in Higher Ranks in Uncle Sam’s New Forces. MEN ASSURED OF GOOD CARE Provost Marshal General Crowder Likely to Be Given Command of Division of Men He Helped Call to the Service. By EDWARD B. CLARK. Washington. —It is assured that the higher ranks of command in the new national army, the army of the men selected for service, will bfe commanded by regular army officers promoted to temporary command for the period of the war. The case is exactly parallel to that of officers promoted to command volunteers In the old days. It is probable that the young soldiers of the new service can consider themselves lucky that officers already trained will be in the places of high command over them. A major general sees to it that his brigadier general looks after his brigade, and a brigadier general sees to it that a colonel looks after his regiment, and a colonel sees to It that the officers down the line of rank looks after their battalions, and companies, and if the “looking after” starts right it generally ends right > The process of raising the new army was Initiated by the military authorities, with Brigadier General Enoch H. Crowder, the provost marshal general, in charge of the work. After the drawing the machinery largely passed into the hands of civilians and thereby, as the war department viewed it, “the people were kept close to their army.” It is believed in Washington that General Crowder, who planned the registration and the draft, will be made a major general and given the command of a division of the young men whom he brought into the service by a process lacking the sting which usually attaches to conscription. Crowder Sees Much Service. Enoch H. Crowder, while he t has been judge advocate general of the army for some time, has seen long and active field service. He was for 15 years an officer of cavalry, and for over a year he was on the field of the fighting between Russia and Japan as a military observer for the United States with the forces of the Japanese. It has been said that by the process used the smart was taken out of conscription. It might also be said that it has been taken out of the service which will result from the process. Young men who joined the new national army under the selective service act need not fear that any officer of regulars or any noncommissioned officer of regulars in posts _of major and minor commands will treat the men under their charge In a spirit different in any way from that which animates the command of volunteers. There will be in the junior commissioned ranks of the new army some thousands of young Americans who have been trained in the reserve corps camps at Fort Sheridan, Plattsburg, Camp Ben Harrison, and in other places. Fear has been expressed that these young men, comparatively few of whom ever have seen service in the regular army, will have a sneer manifest in the method and manner of their command for the soldier who let the days of volunteering go by to wait for selection. '

Such a thing is not to be credited, but it is easy enough to picture some old regular officer in his wrath if a real case of this kind should be brought to his attention. The young fellow who went through Plattsburg to get a commission In three months and who takes on a manner of sneering superiority to the selected service man in his platoon, will get his, and get it quick. Regarded as Volunteers. The president of the United States is the commander in chief of the military forces. The president has said that the men of the new army will be regarded as a part of a nation of men who have volunteered. Not only orders but hints are taken from superior officers. The president ranks the major general, major general ranks the brigadier general, and there are several more who rank the first and second lieutenants. If any Fort Sheridan or Plattsburg rookie lieutenant sneers at the selected service man as a “conscript” he will not be able to dodge quick enough to get away from what will be dropped on him from the ranks above. They won’t sneer, however, for they are made of good stuff. Doubb-has been expressed here and there in the press of the country as to whether or not a man drafted into the service ever can make as good a soldier as the man who has volunteered. In a month’s time no one will know how a man got into the army. Every man of them will be “all for the colors and all for the service.” There never yet was a man worthy the name who did not learn to love the service when battle things were doing. The soldier life is an appealing one. It gets a grip on a man’s affections. He may have been doubtful, he may have been antagonistic at the beginning, but long before the end of the service comes, doubts and antagonisms go down the wind with the smoke of the sunset gun.