Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1917-08-11
COZ &. G UALIOU, TRAINING,
CAMP COMMANDER CORRECrS
ERRONEOUS IMPRESSIONS.
Failure Of Some Officers Is n Natural
ConScQucnce-Al Cannot
Qualify.

When it was recently called to the
attention Of Colonel G. G. Ballou, Com
mandant of the Officers Training
School tor Colored hen at Fort Des
Moines, that there was a tendency on,
the part of acquaintance to criticise
candidates who are being discharged
and returned home said:
Many persons seem to feel that.
failure to complete the prescribed
course at an officers training camp
carries with 1t q certain stigma ap-
proXimating to disgrace.
"This is, in general, not true, and
IS only true in cases of men sent
home by reason Of misconduct.
There is more dangerous and en-
roneous belief than that INDUCED in
by many Of our people, to the effect
that any and every man can become
good military officer. This idea is
almost equivalent to the notion that
putting a uniform on man and a
rifle in his hands makes him Il SOL
der. Both ideas are as incorrect and
fundamentally absurd as would be the
belief that putting ~ scalpel in
mans hands converts him into n sur
geon, or that putting Oh the cap Of
naval officer qualities a man to navi-
Bate ana HBnt DattlcShlp.
mot the least useful result Of our
great training camps will be the cor
rection OF these absurd notions.
Il once mustered into service as an
officer Of high rank, man who frank
ly said: 81 don't know anything
about military matters. l don't know
how to get my regiment going, and
If ones got 1t going, l wouldn't
know how to stop 1t again. Yet
twelve hundred lives, and untold Ma
tional interests were made dependent
upon this utterly unqualified man for
purely political reasons.
"phe mass of the people have had
very little idea OF the danger and
disaster that lie behind such appoint
ments, but there are, nevertheless,
many wives, mothers and sisters who
are heeinning to realize *he' they
the least show for their lives. And
these training camps are going to
vastly increase the appreciation of
the simple proposition that soldier
needs to know his business just as
does the surgeon, tho lawyer, the sail
or, the electrician and every other
man Of profession or trade.
Furthermore, they will spread a
conception Of the fact that army off,
GERS, On whose competence or incom-
petence depends the lives of men and
the fate Of nations. require for the
proper discharge Of their grave duties,
training and abilities of q higher or
der and a more varied character than
DO men OF any other profession in
life.
1T is, therefore, only reasonable to
expect that large numbers of those
who en- ter officers training camps
will find after d few weeks trial that
they were not destined by nature for
the duties and responsibilities OF mil
itary command. This fact should in
Volve no reproach. 1t Is no more dis
graceful to be q misfit at an officers
training camp than to be similar
misfit in training for the church choir.
Real military leaders are as rare as
good musicians. and the unfit must be
eliminated as ruthlessly as are the
d1scordant aspirants for a place in
the orchestra, and this elimination Is
not evidence that the rejected ones
are not good men, brave men or pa.
triotic men,"