Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1920 — 3,000 MEN JOIN ARMY WEEKLY [ARTICLE]

3,000 MEN JOIN ARMY WEEKLY

At Present Rate of Enlistment the 254,000 Personnel Will Soon Be Filled. SOLDIERS NOW LEARN TRADES Military Organization Becoming Vast Trade School—“ Earn While You Learn” Is Popular—New Recruiting Policy. Washington.—-Surmounting the inroads of demobilization, the recruiting campaign begun early this year has brought the total strength of the tegular army to within 35,000 of the 254,000 personnel authorized under the national defense act of 1916, according to latest war department figures. If the present rate of enlistment is malntainsd throughout the year, and nearly 3,000 men are being accepted weekly, it will more than balance losses through expired enlistments, furlough to the reserve and other causes. Most of these enlistment, recruiting officers report, Ae by men anxious to take advantage of the army’s vocational education, an “earn while you learn” system, to fit a soldier for a trade by the time he leaves the army. Last year 75,000 men were accepted who never before had been in the service. Nearly half of the enlisted men are going to school, and the army is becoming not a “university in khaki,” but a vast military trade school. Much of the Instruction in technical subjects is given not by officers, but by civilian teachers, lent to the army in many cases by corporations desirous of employing trained men at the expiration of their enlistment. The war department has received communications from concerns who have sent untrained applicants for employment to the army for a year’s enlistment and trade instruction with promises of Jobs at the end of their service.

Farmers, musicians, stenographers, masons, bookkeepers, pharmacists, mechanics of all kinds, wireless and telegraph operators, printers, gas engine experts, even embalmers, are among the vocations taught. In large cantonments barracks are being transformed into machine shops, laboratories and school rooms. At Camp Dodge, la., where the Fourth division is stationed, there is a 200-acre farm where army students do practical work in agriculture and stock raising under the direction of Dean C. B. Waldron of the North Dakota agricultural college. A committee from the Chicago Church federation visited Camp Grant, Illinois, the home of the Sixth division— the “Sightseeing Sixth,” as its members in France called their division, which hiked from one sector to another without getting into action. The committee inspected the division’s schools and returned ■to Chicago, reporting, “the aim of those who have this work in charge Is to train men so effectively that at the end of their three years In the army they cannot afford to re-enlist.”

Teaching Pharmacy to Men. At Camp Pike, Ark., the home station of the Third division, which won Its spurs at the Marne, a building has been erected to house the school of chemistry. Training in the dispensing and manufacture of drugs will be given, also instruction in the use of the microscope for the detection of impurities in drugs. Students who show the necessary proficiency will be given special tutoring for the examinations of the Arkansas state board. Formerly, to learn a trade in the army, a man had to be assigned to the ordnance or signal corps, the air service or motor transport rorps. Soldiers In such combat branches of the service as the Infantry had few opportunities aside from fatigue duty, drill, guard duty and “bunk fatigue.” In the “new army” men in all branches of the service not in the field have opportunity to learn trades of their own selection. Following demobilization, when thousands of men chose to remain in the service, few recruits were obtained by recruiting depots. The recruiting service overlapped to some extent, parties sent out by regiments and divisions allocated to certain states competing with established recruiting stations. Then the new system of vocational training was instituted, followed by a drive for recruits beginning the middle of last January, and the recruiting service was properly co-ordi-nated. ... - Enlistments rose from 1,800 for the week ending January 24 to 2,800 acceptances weekly the latter part of March. At present one-third of the army may be enlisted for one year, about 85,000 men. Add to this 55,000 three-year enlistments expiring annually and the total number of men leaving the service annually Is 140,000, figuring on the authorized strength of 254,000 under the national defense act. The present rate of enlistment should yield 145,000 annually, a surplus of 5,000 over expiring enlistments. “The campaign begun January 19 of this year has been successful in every respect,” said Maj. Samuel A. Greenwell of the recruiting publicity bureau, which sends out recruiting leaflets to all army recruiting stations. “The personal contact work of the general recruiting service and the parties sent out by allocated organizations followed the same instructions. They did not beg for recruits, they did not offer to send men around the world on a Cook’s

tour, and they did not tell prospective recruits they would be fought for by eager employers offen ig fabulous salaries. They received Imperative orders that under no cljgumstances must they ‘oversell’ the army’s attractions to obtain a recruit; they were told that the army wanted a very high, class of young men, men who would appreciate and take advantage of the training and at the same time make the kind of soldiers that should represent our country. “At the beginning of the campaign many civilian organizations offered their assistance. Chambers of commerce, Rotary clubs, American Legion posts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, ministers’ associations and others did valuable work In arranging., meetings where their own members and officers of the recruiting service explained the plans for the new army. Governors apd mayors Issued proclamations calling attention to army activities in their states and cities, and in many cases set aside special elates as “Army weeks.’” - — Many branches of the service are over their authorized strength, pending possible increase by congressional action. The motor transport corps, the need of which was demonstrated in the war, is 160 per cent above authorized strength. Chemical warfare 122 per Cent, medical department 150 per cent, quartermaster corps 112 per cent, and signal corps 126 per cent. Offsetting this surplus, the Infantry is but 75 per cent of authorized strength, cavalry 81 per cent, field artillery 71 per cent and coast artillery 52 per cent.

Strength of Combat Units. Restoration of the army to a peacetime basis shows many apparent differences in the strength of combat units such as infantry regiments. The national defense act provides for 65 infantry regiments, including the Porto Rican regiment, totaling 88,000 men, an average of 1,350 to the regiment. During the war an infantry regiment numbered over 3,000 men, and some infantry regiments, because of the emergency, must be maintained at over peace-time strength. The Eighth infantry, stationed at Coblenz and on the right bank of the Rhine, has 115 officers and 2,950 men. The Fiftieth infantry, also in Germany, has 75 officers and 2,330 men. Just back from Siberia, the Thirty-first infantry has 89 officers and 3,100 men. The Twen-ty-fourth infantry, along the border In New Mexico, has 52 officers and 3,485 men. With the infantry only at 75 -per cent of authorized strength, and the necessity of maintaining a number of regiments above a peace time basis, many regiments are far below the average strength, particularly the regiments back from France and made up when they returned, of casuals, of replacements and men enlisted only for the emergency. The famous First division, now at Camp Taylor, Ky., has only 5,000 officers and men. The men of all the Infantry regiments of this division wear the French fourragere looped over the left shoulder. The present strengths of these regiments are as follows: Sixteenth Infantry. 35 officers 642 men; Eighteenth infantry, 37 officers, 680 men; Twen-ty-sixth Infantry, 33 officers, 649 men; Twenty-eighth infantry, 34 officers, 626 men.

Some War divisions. Down at Camp Travis, Texas, is the Second division, which had the heaviest casualties of any division in France, and took one-quarter of the prisoners and artillery captured by the A. E. F. The marine brigade is no longer with this organization, and no infantry brigade has yet been assigned to its place. The total strength of the Second division is 211 officers and 2,056 enlisted men. Like the First division, the infantry regiments of the Second are proud wearers of the fourragere. The Ninth Infantry, which fought ih China and took the village of Vaux in a brilliant attack in the Chateau Thierry sector, has 8 officers and 372 men. The Twenty-third infantry, which fought alongside of the Ninth In 1812, in the Civil war and in France, has 39 officers and 337 men. The Third division, which fought at the Marne, St. Mihiel and the ArgonneMeuse, has 313 officers and 2,795 enlisted men at Camp Pike, Ark. The Thirty-eighth Infantry, which repulsed six German regiments and took 600 prisoners at the Marne in July, 1918, has 36 officers and 312 men. The Thirtieth infantry, which stormed Hill 204, west of Chateau Thierry, has 47 officers and 228 men. Of the other infantry regiments of-the Third division, the Fourth has 39 officers and 352 men, and the Seventh 34 officers and 278 men. / The Fourth division, thrust into action for the first time near Chateau Thierry, is stationed at Camp Dodge, lowa, with 245 officers and 1,577 enlisted men. Strengths of its Infantry regiments are: Thirty-ninth, 81 officers, 136 men; Forty-seventh, 33 officers, 133 men; Fifty-eighth, 31 officers, 120 men; Fifty-ninth, 31 officers, 133 men. In battle for the first time at St. Mihiel, the Fifth division Is at Camp Gordon, Georgia, with 206 officers and 2,186 enlisted men. The Sixth division, which boasts of having done more hiking, than any other A. E. F. division, is now at Camp Grant, with 277 officers and 3,227 enlisted men. The Seventh division, which arrived in France in time to hold the left bank of the Moselle river until the armistice, is at Camp Funston, Kansas, numbering 243 officers and 2,246 men. The total strength of the seven tactical divisions now stationed in this country, each of which would have a wartime strength of 28,000, is 20,770 officers and men.