A Lesson in Realism

An unusually intelligent and enterprising reservist was Major Robert Allen Griffin, who reported to Lieut. General Ben Lear two months ago for duty as public-relations officer of the Second Army. Last week he had learned that enterprise does not always pay in a peacetime army. By trying to make the Louisiana-Arkansas maneuvers seem more earnest and realistic than just a camping trip he had brought down wrath upon his head.

Mustached, polished Major Griffin, World War I infantry captain and D.S.C. man, is the wealthy publisher of the Monterey (Calif.) Peninsula Herald and president of Monterey Peninsula Broadcasting Co. World traveler and alarmed observer of the events of the '303 in Europe, he realized that one defect in army morale was that most soldiers did not appreciate how modern wars occur, did not really understand why they might have to fight.

To give the war game a realistic background he distributed a 16-page mimeographed description of a fictitious politico-economic situation that led to the hostilities. On one side was the state of Kotmk (initials of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky), represented by the Third Army. On the other side was the state of Almat (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee) of the Second Army.

Like Germany, Kotmk was defeated by Almat in 1918, and lost the "provinces" of Louisiana and Arkansas along with control of the vital Mississippi River waterway. But Kotmk had pulled herself up by her bootstraps, raised a powerful army, made up for her loss of the Louisiana oil fields by making new strikes in Texas. "The State had undertaken also a gigantic scheme of physical culture. . . . The birth rate in Kotmk had risen to a point where it was far in excess of more prosperous Almat. The vigor of the young people of Kotmk was so pronounced that medical authorities all over the world held [it] up as the finest ever devised in the strengthening of the race."

Like France, in Almat after the war "There was a rapid industrial development . . . various industrial abuses led to a powerful union movement that soon was largely taken over by Communist elements."

Almat, meanwhile, was torn by internal bickering, indecision, by pleas of President Oosenay for intervention by the King of Sweden. Leader of Almat's peace party was a Senator Speeler ("I condemn this display of force by our foolhardy Government at this critical juncture. . . . It is as though we were at war. ... I cry for peace and greater social gains"). So war came and Kotmk assaulted the hastily assembled Almat army.

War came to Major Griffin after Protestant Episcopal Bishop Henry Wise Hobson, once a major of artillery, now national chairman of Fight for Freedom, Inc., got wind of what the Second Army's publicity officer had handed out to troops.

"At no point is any reminder given of Nazi cruelty and lawlessness," the bishop thundered in protest to Secretary Stimson. "We know you will be shocked immeasurably." He added that the handout "might well have been written by Goebbels," and said to newsmen: "Some court-martials might be in order."

Retorted Colonel Walter B. Smith of the General Staff at Washington: "The German Army is the best in circulation. If they [Fight for Freedom, Inc.] know a better army, let us know."

Fight for Freedom rapped back that if Colonel Smith's remark was what the General Staff thought, the Staff needed overhauling. Meanwhile, Second Army's Ben Lear, who has had enough personal publicity, was silent. Major Griffin, bewildered by the storm kicked up by Fight for Freedom, could only murmur: "I thought I was on their team."

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