OCR Text |
Show Washington, D. C. ARMY WIVES AND PROMOTIONS j The extent to which army wives j Influence promotions, dictate mili- j tary expediency and dominate the ! army always has been a matter of j warm debate at army posts. Inside the war department, there are two schools of thought. One ad- j pnits there is a certain amount of petticoat influence; the other main- ! tains that the army is a man's army and that women have absolutely nothing to. do with it. Those of the former school point : to the fact that Gen. John Pershing, when only a captain, married the j daughter of Senator Francis Warren Df Wyoming, then chairman of the senate military affairs committee, after which Pershing was jumped in rank and became a brigadier general. gen-eral. Then, when Woodrow Wilson !aced senate controversy over who ihould head an American Expedi-Jonary Expedi-Jonary force to France, with many senators demanding Teddy Roose-elt, Roose-elt, Wilson selected Senator Warren's War-ren's son-in-law and thus quashed senate controversy. The petticoat school also points to ;he fact that Gen. Douglas MacAr-Jiur MacAr-Jiur first married the beautiful laughter of Edward T. Stotesbury, i J. P. Morgan partner, who re-luested re-luested Secretary of War Weeks to advance MacArthur to the rank of najor general when most of his West Point classmates were still majors ma-jors and colonels. Another example is Mrs. George Patton Jr., wife of the pistol-packin' general. Her coolness, poise and ;harm helped her hot-tempered husband hus-band out of a good many peacetime ;crapes long before his unfortunate incounter with a sick soldier in Sicily. In the other school are those who joint to a host of high-ranking gen-;rals gen-;rals whose wives have had no po-itical po-itical influence on their careers. General Marshall's first wife aspired ,o be an opera singer, was sick for i long time, finally died. General Eisenhower's wife is an unassuming ady who has kept in the background. back-ground. General Somervell, until ecently, was a widower. 'Warning' to Fliers' Wives. Now, however, comes a new argu-ier argu-ier in this controversy. General 'Hap" Arnold, chief of the army lir forces, has been put squarely on -ecord by Col. Alfred L. Jewett, :ommander of the air forces tech-lical tech-lical school at Gulfport, Miss., as recognizing that wives influence an )fficer's promotion. Colonel Jewett himself doesn't nake any bones about it. He says hat an air force officer's "efficien-:y "efficien-:y report" is affected by "activi-ies "activi-ies by his wife." The "activi-;ies" "activi-;ies" in this case refers to joining he Gulfport Field Women's club. Colonel Jewett last month sent out i circular letter to all officers under lim, virtually ordering their wives 0 join the club. He even went so far as to warn hat, "in the event that any officers' vives do not wish to belong, it is de-iired de-iired that'their husbands so state in 1 letter to the commanding officer, uch letter to be submitted prior to he fifth of the month following the late the officer reported to the sta-ion sta-ion for duty." And then, apparently afraid that lis subordinates might not take the lint in the none-too-subtle warning, Colonel Jewett laid it right on the ine by invoking the authority of General Gen-eral Arnold. "Active participation in the work f the Women's club is a matter in which higher authority, including the j ;hief of the air forces, is vitally in- I ;erested," warned Colonel Jewett 1 Dluntly. "And every officer in the ; air forces may expect to find his Bfficiency report affected by the ' nnanner of participation in these activities by his wife." So there it is in black and white. CLEANLINESS NEXT TO GODLINESS Take it from Lieut. Col. Jimmy Roosevelt, the President's son, the Irst tiling a , fighting man thinks' about after a hard battle is a bath. Jimmy, who distinguished himseli with the marines in the South Pa- j :ific, was recently telling friends about some of his war experiences, j "We had a pretty tough time of it on Guadalcanal, as everybody knows," Jimmy related. "After one Df the first hard battles was over, some of us were taken aboard a navy ship. The first thing they offered of-fered us was a square meal. But we weren't hungry. We had managed man-aged very well on our K rations. What we all wanted was a bath. But I guess the soap and water sharpened sharp-ened up our appetites, for we just about cleaned out the ship's larder afterwards." CAPITAL CHAFF C.AMG (Allied Military Government) Govern-ment) is facing a tough problem regarding re-garding 300,000 tons of oranges and : 300.000 tons of lemons waiting to be J picked in Sicily and southern Italy. ! The fruit is ripe, but men can't be '. spared from the front to pick it. Meanwhile, we are forced to ship some dried citrus into Italy. i C American Zionists point out that Palestine has contributed more u the war effort than any other coup try in the Near East, including th manufacture of land mines. |