THE MISSION OF THE SOLDIER

We tend to accept, as a matter of course, things with which we are familiar. We turn on the water and electric light without giving a thought to the men, money, and machinery that provide them for us. We expect the trains to be on time and to find the drug store open at any hour of the day or night. For a few dollars we buy a suit of clothes that woolgrowers, sailors, machinists, bankers, and a host of others have worked to produce. At every turn we use things that we could not possibly produce for ourselves. And we go about in safety unmindful of the complex arrangements that are set up to insure life, liberty, comfort, and health. We accept them all as a matter of course. It is only when something goes wrong—when the system breaks down, or when some individual or group fails in the performance of duty-that we become conscious of our dependence on others. By division of labor our hands are multiplied, and, while we work for many, doing the things that fall to us to do, many are working for us and they expect us to do our part, just as we expect them to do theirs.

One of the most important problems in organizing society is to maintain law and order and to protect the people while they carry on their peaceful pursuits. Without such protection the world would soon be peopled with scattered tribes of wandering savages. It is the mission of the soldier to furnish protection, and his work requires special training to give him the knowledge and skill neccessary to do it well.

NECESSITY FOR ORGANIZATION

We have only to look about us to see the great importance of organization in life. Every man can go about the work in which he is interested only because the work of the world is organized. When we want something to eat, we go to the grocery store and buy it. When we want clothes, we go to the clothing store for them. When we need medical advice, we call a physician. When we need legal advice, we consult a lawyer. When we need money, we ask the bank for help. When we wish to travel, we use the railroad. In a well-ordered society, every man does his special work, in which he becomes proficient, while others do other things which are useful to the group. Even individual enterprises are organized. A bank has its board of directors, president, vice-president, cashiers, bookkeepers, paying and receiving tellers, errand boys, and janitors. Thus all people form a great team, each having his special part to play. To be a good player, each must know how to do his part and must play according to the spirit and rules of the game.

The Army's part in our national team is to defend us against undue interference. We have great wealth and certain national ideals and traditions. We can not afford to have them destroyed. To defend them, the Army must be thoroughly organized, and must cultivate every virtue of team-play.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES

The Army consists of the Regular Army, the National Guard while in the service of the United States, and the Organized Reserves, including the Officers' Reserve

Corps and the Enlisted Reserve Corps. In time of peace, these three component s constitute a framework on which a great national army of well-trained men can quickly be built.

The Regular Army is maintained to furnish the necessary protection of our frontiers in peace time and to garrison our overseas possessions. It provides the overhead administration for the citizen army and supplies officers to help train the National Guard and the Organized Reserves. It is the training force for the other e'ements of our National Defense system. Regular Army officers and enlisted men are on duty as instructors with the National Guard, the Organized Reserves, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and the Citizens' Military Training Camps in time of peace, and in time of war these duties will continue. Besides its many peace-time missions the Regular Army must stand as a model war organization and must be ready at all times for immediate use in an emergency.

The National Guard of to-day has evolved from the militia of earlier days. It exists for the local use of the States in time of general peace, but in a national emergency it joins with the Regular Army and together they constitute the first line of defense.

In peace time the units of the Organized Reserve consist chiefly of reserve officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted specialists, who form a mold in which to shape and train the enlisted strength called to duty in an emergency. They represent the last line of organized defense. At the present time the Officers' Reserve Corps is composed chiefly of veterans of the World War. In order that the ranks may not be depleted as time goes on, there have been established several agencies for training young men to fill them.

One agency is the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, known as the R. O. T. C., which receives training in various schools and colleges throughout the United States. The Government furnishes officers, enlisted men, materials, and money to carry on the military instruction. Training also is given in some secondary schools, with a small amount of aid from the Government in the way of arms, ammunition, and instructors.

Another agency is the Citizens' Military Training Camps, known as the C. M. T. C. These camps are conducted in many parts of the country usually for four weeks every summer, and they give to the young men of every community an opportunity, to receive military training, if they wish it.

INFANTRY ORGANIZATION

The war-strength organization of the Infantry-which comprises two-thirds of our armed forces-and of the larger units of the combined arms, is as follows: 1. The squad. The squad consists of eight men, including a corporal in charge. The squad is the unit in which the private soldier lives, eats, sleeps, fights, and has his being until promotion or disability removes him from its associations. It is the team in which he learns and plays the fighting game. The squad is the unit upon which all of the work of the platoon and the company depends. Unless the men of each squad work together as a single man, the work of the platoon becomes wellnigh impossible.

2. The platoon.-Strictly a fighting unit. It is normally composed of six squads, with noncommissioned officers and others who bring the total up to a strength of fifty-seven enlisted men. It is commanded normally by a lieutenant. For combat, the platoon is divided into two sections. Each section is normally under the command of a sergeant, who has a corporal (section guide) as an assistant. The lieutenant commanding the platoon is known as the platoon leader, and he has as an

assistant a platoon sergeant and a detachment of privates for duty as runners and signalmen. This makes up the platoon headquarters. The education of the enlisted soldier is begun in the squad and finished in the platoon. When he learns what is expected of the squad and the platoon, and acquires the spirit of team play in these organizations, he is a trained and efficient member of his organization.

3. The company.—The rifle company consists of three platoons and the company headquarters, consisting of a detachment of noncommissioned officers, clerks, buglers, cooks, runners, and signalmen. The total strength of a company is two hundred enlisted men and six officers. The company serves as a link to hold the platoons together and make them mutually supporting. The company commander assigns missions to the platoons in combat. The platoons apply to him for any assistance they may need in carrying out their mission. The company is also the housekeeping agency; platoons do the fighting, but that is all they do as platoons. They must eat, sleep, draw clothing and pay, and be supplied with shelter, bathing facilities, and medical attendance. The company organization provides for all of this. The company may be likened to a large family, with three fighting members-the platoons, and a housekeeping member, the company headquarters.

4. The battalion.-The battalion is composed of five companies-three rifle companies, one machine gun company, and one headquarters company. It is commanded by a major or lieutenant colonel.

5. The regiment. Three battalions, headquarters company, howitzer company, service company, attached medical personnel, and chaplain-form a regiment, commanded by a colonel.

6. The brigade.-Two Infantry regiments, brigade headquarters, headquarters company, medical detachment, and chaplain-form a brigade, commanded by a brigadier general.

7. The division.-Two Infantry brigades, one artillery brigade of two regiments, one engineer regiment, one medical regiment, division air service, special troops, division headquarters, division train, attached medical personnel-form a division, commanded by a major general.

8. The corps. Two or more divisions, corps troops including artillery, air and antiaircraft units, engineers, special troops, corps trains-form a corps, commanded by an officer with the rank of major general or above.

9. The army. Two or more corps, and army troops including artillery, air service, antiaircraft units, engineers, signal units, medical units, military police, and army trains-form an army, commanded by an officer with the rank of major general or above.

VALUE OF MILITARY TRAINING

In military training highly efficient methods are employed for maintaining health and building up physical fitness. Had the general public profited by the knowledge and experience of the Army in physical training it would not have been necessary, when the call for service in the World War came, to discard one-third of the potential manpower because of physical disability. The loss was serious, but it was insignificant in comparison with the untold loss in productive efficiency that the nation sustained throughout the years, to say nothing of the loss to a host of individuals in not being able to realize the fullness and vigor of life that comes through physical fitness.

Military training is also directed toward the securing of mental and moral fitness. The old conception of the soldier as a blindly obedient automaton has been superseded by the ideal of a self-controlled, intelligent man, who is impelled by his

own conviction of the righteousness of his cause—who has the initiative and judgment to surmount difficulties, and who has supreme confidence in his ability to master any situation. This change has been brought about in part by the use of machines in modern warfare, and has so enormously extended the battle front that it is no longer expedient to fight in close-order formation. In extended formation the soldier no longer has the moral support that comes from being under the immediate eye of his commanding officer, nor is he closely surrounded by comrades before whom he is inspired to acquit himself with credit. He must do his duty when there is no one near to observe, criticise, or approve his conduct.

He

He must carry on largely by force of his own determination and self-discipline. In a sudden emergency he must act upon his own initiative and judgment. must be resourceful, courageous, and able to concentrate all his energies of soul and body upon the accomplishment of his objective. This change from close-order to extended-order formations in military operations is exactly paralleled in modern economic and civil life. Our industrial and political relations are so complex that it is impossible to watch all the people all the time. Our very lives are dependent upon their fidelity, but we must trust them. Mental and moral fitness, so vital to success in battle today, are no less vital to success in the pursuits of peace.

Physical fitness, the discipline of self-control, respect for authority, the habit of obedience, and the spirit of initiative and cooperation are the distinguishing marks of a high-grade people.

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

The subject of discipline is the phase of military training which the beginner generally experiences the most difficulty in understanding. The reason for this may be laid principally to the popular and incomplete understanding of the meaning of the word-namely, that discipline is punishment, whereas, as a matter of fact, this conception includes only a special and secondary application of the word.

The word discipline is derived from the word disciple, which means one who accepts the instruction or doctrine of another. Primarily, to discipline means to develop by means of instruction, to educate, to train according to certain established rules; secondarily, it means to punish by way of correction, and the first part of the definition best expresses the sense in which the term has its greatest significance in the military service.

Discipline may be defined as being the habit of intelligent obedience, inculcated by education and training, by means of which order, precision and promptness are insured at all times.

The object, in general, of discipline is to secure intelligent concentration of effort. The success of ali military work depends upon the ability of the commander to enforce his will upon those under him and to cause them to execute his plans with promptness and precision. Unless he is able to do this, he cannot embark with assurance upon any plan, however sound, but must always anticipate the possibility of its failing through faulty execution. As the size of the command increases, this condition is augmented accordingly. The task of handling large bodies of men, marching them, camping them, supplying them and maneuvering them in battle is a difficult one even when the absolute order, precision and promptness which we call discipline may be relied upon. As this condition of discipline decreases, the difficulties of the problem multiply enormously, until a point is finally reached where it becomes a problem without a possible solution. Without proper discipline, control is out of the question and military employment becomes little more than mob action.

This condition is not peculiar to the military service alone. In everything involving united effort, men must be trained to orderly and concerted action before efficiency may be expected. That which we know in the business world as shop system is merely discipline under another name. For example: In a manufacturing plant, an article may have to pass through the hands of several workmen before it is finished. Each workman has a certain definite task in connection with the making of the article. Each man's task is analyzed, studied and reduced to the least number of movements or operation, and the man is trained until his hands automatically and accurately guide the articles through these operations. It is only when each man who has a part to play in the making of the article has been trained to the same precision and accuracy that all may work with the maximum efficiency, and that the establishment may be considered upon basis of efficiency and economy.

If this order and discipline be considered necessary in commercial life, where labor is performed day after day under unvarying circumstances, calmly and without distraction, how much greater must be its necessity in the military service, where the soldier's task can not be reduced to a formula and where his serious work is invariably accompanied by the confusion which goes with excitement and the fear of bodily injury.

The cheerful, intelligent and energetic performance of duty under any and all circumstances is an unfailing evidence of discipline. Such performance is brought about by orderly and systematic instruction, progressive in character, so that it finally becomes automatic and subconscious. This means that the trained and disciplined soldier is expected to put his best effort into everything he does, endeavoring to carry out the spirit of his orders, or, in the absence of orders, to do what he thinks his officers would want him to do.

DISCIPLINE IN THE ARMY

The Army Regulations define discipline as being an attitude characterized by willing and cheerful obedience to orders, by a scrupulous conformity to standardized procedure, and by unremitting effort in the appropriate sphere of initiative, evidenced in part by smartness of appearance and action, by cleanliness of person and neatness of dress, and by respect for superiors.

Superiors are forbidden to injure those under their authority by tyrannical or capricious conduct or by abusive language. While maintaining discipline and the thorough and prompt performance of military duty all officers, in dealing with enlisted men, bear in mind the absolute necessity of so treating them as to preserve their self-respect. A grave duty rests on all officers and particularly upon organization commanders in this respect. Officers are enjoined to impress upon the young soldiers lessons of patriotism and loyalty that will teach them the necessity for obedience and military discipline, and above all will impress upon them the necessity for obedience in the service. These lessons are repeated again and again. The difference in the status of a soldier as compared to that of a civilian is carefully explained. The Articles of War are not only read to enlisted men, but are explained and their purpose laid before the young soldier in such a way as to make him understand that in becoming a soldier he has subjected himself to a new control and has assumed obligations of service that did not rest upon him as a civilian. Officers keep as close touch as possible with the enlisted men under their command, take an interest in their organizational life, hear their complaints, endeaver on all occasions to remove the existence of those causes which make for dissatisfaction, and strive to