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Show Washington Comment The army announced last week that a nation-wide air-raid warning warn-ing service, manned by 500,000 to 600,000 volunteer civilian observers observ-ers will be established immediately. immedi-ately. A majority of the civilian "minute men" will be women and they will be trained to act as spotters of enemy airplanes in time of war. The warning system is a part of the new aerial defense plan being put into effect -by the war department after long study of the lessons of the war, and following closely the British air defense program, is said to in- volve the cooperation of intercep-i intercep-i tor pursuit' planes, antiaircraft I batteries, balloon barrages, the army signal corps, and the civilian civil-ian observers. The war depart, ment expects to have its 500,000 'civilians enrolled by the end of I August "for active participation j in air defense" and we'd like to jknow if that isn't significant or is it? - (Although Uncle Sam receives daily scores of offers from invent-j invent-j ors of a sure-fire "death-ray" to wipe out a whole enemy empire, he isn't trusting to any legerdemain; legerde-main; he's plodding right along ! with orthodox defense measures. The draft age-limit will be re-jductd re-jductd to 18-30 eventually, you I may depend on it, in spite of the I howl which was elicited from ! congress when Mr. Roosevelt sent up his "trial balloon" on the sub. ject last week. The army is plan- ; ning to train 10,000 or more selectees, selec-tees, or other soldiers, as officers 1 next year a five-fold increase J over original plans. Ten schools jj" (Continued on last page) -t M ! M j Washington Comment 1 (Continued from first page) ' with an enrollment of 2,300 men 'will open early in July for three- ! month courses leading to commis. r sions. New and larger groups : will enter the schools in October, , January and April. Tbe rumor that the one-year army training for draftees will be extended, 1 isn't idle talk either! And a na-j na-j tion-wide program for the "pre-; "pre-; habitation" of selective service ; registrants with remediable phys-' phys-' ical defects was announced last 'week at- national selection headquarters. head-quarters. The program includes j the "education" of candidates in aiVvy physical standards and the ! cooperation of their physicians, as j well as public and private health asrencies, in correction of their ! ailments before their classifica-: classifica-: tion. |