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Show JplGEWERAL HOd HUGH s- fcj JOHNSON fr. UniudFatwa W WNU Service Washington, D. C. TRAINING CCC BOYS It is timid nonsense to propose, by law, "non-combatant" military training for the CCC boys. What is ion-combatant military service? It Is a contradiction in terms jike talking about a two-legged quadruped quadru-ped or a one-bladed pair of shears. A man may, as has been suggested, suggest-ed, serve in the army as a cook, a truck driver or an oxy-acetylene welder and many such will be needed. need-ed. But he is a soldier just the same and is not recognized, at international in-ternational or military law, as a non-combatant. This is just monkey-business with words. This column has long opposed drafting CCC boys as such by any device. They are poor. Whatever form of military service we adopt must demand absolutely equal sacrifice sac-rifice regardless of wealth or poverty, pov-erty, race or religion, color or politics. poli-tics. But giving military training is not requiring military service. In times like these it is a great boon to any boy who may later be called upon, under our democratic form of selective se-lective drafting, to do military service. In the first place, it may save his life or limbs. It is the "half-baked "half-baked recruit" who is slaughtered like sheep and who, as Kipling sang, "wonders because he is frequent deceased, de-ceased, ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier." In the second place, if our bungling, bun-gling, blundering foreign and defense de-fense policies do get us into this bloody mess and require the raising of mass armies, the boy who has had sound military training before conscription starts will have a very great advantage over his fellows in advancement, pay and comforts. My only boy has had about all the military instruction the army gives to men his age and if I had another son who had none now, I would consider the best thing I could do for him would be to see to it that he got an intensive course in military training as promptly as it could be arranged. It is true that modern war requires re-quires specialists in almost every branch of human effort but basic military training is necessary in addition ad-dition to any special civilian skill a boy may have. General Marshall is reported to have said that the army prefers to give these boys only "non-combatant" training because it is "inconvenient" "incon-venient" to give combatant training in CCC camps. I hesitate to disagree dis-agree with the chief of staff because be-cause we are fortunate to have in him at this critical hour one of the best of the world's professional soldiers. It is even hard for me to believe that he said that because it is wrong to the point of absurdity. But General Marshall is an official offi-cial of this administration and ut- I terly loyal. The whole of adminis- ' tration policy on defense has been politically timid and never frank. Up to the point of training by battalions, bat-talions, the CCC camps and organization organi-zation are almost ideal if the army is prepared to furnish enough instructors, in-structors, and if it isn't so prepared there isn't any use talking about training anybody. Training now is multiple insurance insur-ance against harm and danger, to the boy himself, to men later draft ed raw from the streets that he may have to lead and train and, above all, to the nation which, if war comes, will find its very existence depending upon the degree of skill, strength and toughness of the men in its armed forces. CCC boys thus trained will be subject to conscription to exactly the same extent and to no greater degree than any other young men of their age and condition as to health and dependency of others upon them. Let's not hobble ourselves our-selves with any such nonsensical legal restrictions. |
