Chance for the Unruly

What should be done with soldiers who desert? Should surly soldiers who refuse to obey orders be imprisoned and dishonorably discharged? Such problems, which every army must face, were being met in the U.S. last week in nine new camps designed for salvage and reclamation of substandard soldiers.

Sponsor of the new camps, established last December, is Brigadier General Edwin C. McNeil, 60-year-old onetime West Point law teacher and Assistant Judge Advocate General. The camps were an outgrowth of the old disciplinary-barracks (D.B.) scheme at Fort Leavenworth. The enlightened Leavenworth system (famed among old Army men for its "restored" enlisted men) had been set up when post-World War I investigations showed that some U.S. prison camps in France were inhuman institutions where soldier-prison ers were beaten, robbed and starved.

New Method. Typical of the new detention barracks is the one at Camp Phillips, Salina, Kans., in the Seventh Service Command. The average casualty of his own misconduct is 25, has had only seven years education. Two out of three have been imprisoned for desertion (which in wartime can carry a death sentence) or persistently going A.W.O.L. (Other offenses: sleeping on post, repeated misdemeanors, unbecoming military conduct, escape, disobedience to officers.) Three out of four prisoners are single. Half come from farms, half from cities. All have been sentenced to hard labor and dishonorable discharge.

Prisoners at Camp Phillips, as at other centers, are divided into three groups, depending on the heinousness of their offenses and the prospects of their reform: 1) first-grade prisoners get basic infantry training all over again, a tobacco ration, may write two letters a week, may be visited by their families on Sundays and holidays, may read certain books and magazines; 2) second-graders are restricted to one letter a week, may keep only one book, a magazine and Bible in their quarters; 3) extreme cases are completely restricted: no tobacco, one letter a month, four trips a day from the cells (one to bathe, three to the latrine) and they must wear the ignominious "P" (for prisoner).

New Hope. A second-grade prisoner can be promoted to the first grade after 30 days' good conduct. Even third-grade prisoners can advance upon recommendation of the center's commanding officer. First-grade prisoners can go into honor companies, which, says General McNeil, "will appeal to any man who has pride or self-respect."

When the military psychologists approve, prisoners of the first grade are released for good conduct and sent back to soldiering, but not with the same units they came from. If pending legislation passes, "graduates" who have been sentenced to the most severe soldier's penalty short of death (dishonorable discharge and loss of citizenship) may have both set aside, start off brand-new.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.