EM EM : monthly magazine - 01.07.1941, Blaðsíða 6

6
Em Em
Army Does Not Use'Kid Qlqves
■ On “Selected”
By CHARLES P. STEVVART,
-r, Central Press Columnist .
' TO SPEAK of a young man as
having been drafted into Uncle
military service or to rcfer
him as a conscript almost
on being a severely punish-
able offense
these times.
The chap by
no m e a n s is
drafted. Heis
selected, which
is a great com-
pliment to him.
It proves that
he’s physically
and mentally a
fine human
specimen, or he
would not have
passed exam-
Charles P. jination by the
Stewart, selective service
_ a u thorities.
Having done so, he becomes a se-
lectee. He ought to be proud of it.
i Drafted? A conscript? Heavens,
no! Those are unpleasant terms.
They hint at compulsion. All sorts
of pains were taken to dodge their
employment, in the wording of the
selective service law. Anyone who
uses either one of them is due for
a stern calling down from selective
service headquarters. One of these
headquarters’ main ' ideas is • to
make the training tremendously
popular. Oh, yes. It’s all right, if
you choose, to call a selectee a'
trainee instead. ' /__
i When a boy has the good fortune
to get by the board he initially ap-
pears before, he’s questioned as to
any peacetime craft he may hap-
pen to be skilled in, and if it’s of a
nature calculated to make him es-
pecially useful in some particular
line of military activity, the board
recommends him to the army folk
accordingly. It’s nicer for him to
get into one of these specialists’
branches than to serve as an ordi-
nary buck private in the ranks,
where he’s likely to be directly
shot at if we actually become in-
volved in war. ________
L The army people, however, don’t
invariably act on the original
board’s recommendation.
þ (í1 > j This Can Happen
[j Por instance, suppose a lad’s a
competent auto mechanic. The
board indorses him as a machlnist.
Ha renorts fnr dutv. The hárd-
böiíea army omcer m cnarge cx-
amines his credentials. Then he
says “O. k. Come out and take a
look' at one of our tanks nearby.
See if you can work it.”
Now. a tank’s operated very difi
ferently from an automobile. If
hasn’t the kind of engineering that
an auto has. Except that they’re
both automotive. tanks and 'autos
have precious little in eommon.
So the kid completely muffs his
test. ^ ^
“Such being the case," says the
officer, “you’re due for four prelim-
inary months of regular rank-and-
file training. By then maybe you’ll
have learned enough for a bit
classier duty.”
Why don’t they assign that se-
lectee to an auto in preference to
a tank?
Answering that question, it’s
rather common talk that profes-
sional army men areri’t entirely in
sympathy with the home board’s
policy of representing military life
as something perfectly heavenly.
The professionals have their or-
ders, to be sure, to treat selectees
with all consideration. They carry
out these instructions, too, in pub-
lic. In herding a bunch of rookies
into their coaches in railroad sta-
tions, with lots of civilian bystand-
ers looking on and listening, offl-
cerdom is as polite as punch. The
inductees (that’s another name it’s
permissible to call ’em by) hava
elegant accommodations also —
Pullmans and all that sort of stuff.
But when they arrive at canton-
ments it begins to be, “You’re ir.
the army now.”
At least, so I hear from some of
the professionals themselves.
No Coddliug
The professionals unmistakably
don’t believe in coddling. They
don’t believe in it for the selectees’
own good.
In essentials they’re admirably
provided for. They’re fed on the
fat of the land — better, many of
them, than they probably were fed
on where they came from. Delica-
cies are included—gumdrops, etc.
“How, though,” queried a young
shavetail professional I talked with
the other day, “are we going to
make soldiers out of selectees by
handling ’em as softies until, may-
be, they’re chucked into action,
and have to shoot and be shot at?"
There’s no implication that the
trainees are deliberatelv hazed bv
To Eire for U. S.
Major John W. Wofford, cavalry
officer, will be the first military at-
tache ever sent to Eire. Washing-
ton officials declared the appoint-
ment was necessitated by the in-
creased duties of the attache in
London, not by the expectation ol
war coming to Eire.
uic piuj.caaiunai gang m canion-
ments, but it’s extremely obvious
that the regular fighters. down to
top sergeants, anyway, are doing
their best to toughen ’em up. They
have to do it surreptitiöusly, how-*
ever. They could be openly sum-J
mary with drafted conscripts, but
not with inductees, trainees and'
selectees./ ~