The Last-Minutemen

The Army has definite ideas for postwar national defense. And this week Washington was discreetly talking about them. The Army wants: 1) universal military training; 2) a continuation of the present Army setup into postwar. But in the first murmurs of discussion the Army's chance of getting all it wanted did not look bright.

Such a setup would result in the abolition of state militias (National Guard), which have their roots in the nation's tradition of minutemen. After the last war General John J. Pershing spoke out for a strong National Guard as a means of maintaining peacetime strength without keeping a large professional army. Now, many officers think, the militia idea is clearly outmoded; in a future war the minutemen would be too late. The Guard's drawbacks:

P: Division commanders are picked by state governors. General George Marshall, after a trial of the Guard divisions in training, had to remove all but a few of them for lack of experience or plain incompetence. As events turned out, there was just barely time between mobilization in the fall of 1940 and Pearl Harbor a year later to shake up officers and men, remodel divisions into competent combat outfits.

P: The Guard is rigidly organized into infantry, cavalry, mechanized divisions, etc. A chief of staff might suddenly discover in an emergency that these are not the types of units he immediately needs.

P: Guard divisions are recruited without regard to age, family obligations, or usefulness in an essential industry. In peacetime this is all right; in wartime it dislocates the war machine.

P: Guard divisions are made up of men from the same area. A single military action may deal a community a stunning blow.

Compulsory military training would make it unnecessary to have a National Guard as part of the federal military establishment. One year's training for eligible 18-year-olds, with post-training R.O.T.C. and O.C.S. for men who want to be reserve officers, would create a great national pool of able men. The Army would also keep on hand a standing professional force of 1,000,000.

Why did the Army's chance of success look none too good? The National Guard Association has indicated that if the Guard is not returned to prewar status it will fight universal military training. Federalization of anything is viewed by the U.S. public with distrust. Congress is fighting shy of the whole subject now, and after the war there is apt to be the same revulsion against all things military that there was after World War I. The pacifists killed compulsory military training then. Pacifists and National Guard politicians could kill it this time.

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