The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1918-08-15
Recruit Often Is
Afraid of Gun
BY A BRITISH MUsKETRY
OFFICER.

~ ihNsNA soA tht y thAttt toc-t
London. July 21.-A man who rides
a bicycle wonders how on earth ii is
possible to fall OF. just as a man who
Is learning to ride wonders how on
earth it is possible to stay on
That is contrast which every mig
kerry instructor must keep continual
iy in his mind. If he does not he
will forget that to every recruit the
rifle is a new and perhaps a danger
GUS thing. He approaches il with
respect. Exactly as with the bicycle
he wonders not only how he will man
age it. and what il will do with him.
That is why you cannot drill men into
shooting as you can drill them into
forming tours. and why with harsh
ness and impatience wou may spoil a
good man at musketry. You are do
ing more than TO teach him to do a
new thing. you are putting strange
instrument into his hands. as you
might give him a curious animal. and
he has TO be accustomed to it. If you
let him use it wrongly. if you let him
fire his first shot with loose grip
and hurt himself with the kick. you
may make him. permanently afraid of
it.
That is an obvious carelessness
which every good instructor avoids.
but he has to do more. he has to re-
membed that every man with imagin-
alton enough TO lear at all must have
certain gun shyness at first even If
what the first shot will feel like That
as every instructor knows is hard
thing TO keep that perpetually and
consciously in mind.
MEN SHOW NERVOUSNESS
Gun shyness Is well chosen ex-
preston and in the exact sense of it
every man is gun shy at the beginning
but II is used more often simply TO
describe the more obvious physical
nervousness that some men show
when they first handle a rifle II is
very difficult to find cause for ii.
IL may perhaps be a repugnance 10
sudden noise. repugnance which. II
you knew the mans past. you would
find to have shown itself in other
esting To note that artillery officers
do not find ss much gun shyness
among their men as might be expected
from the greater volume OF noise OR.
of an imaginative man at handling a
dangerous thing for the first time in
his life: or it may, in rare cases, be
definite fear of some particular &C.
self is perfectly conscious
II was so in a case of a man wttn
glasses who fiinched badly at every
shot. He had a brother who also
wore glasses and who had been blind
I'D in one eye by sudden explosion
He was in continual fear OF the same
accident. The only thing was TO put
him 10 shoot without his glasses. He
was shortsirhted but could see well
enough at the short ranges. Ii did
not matter at all that at five hundred
dred yards he could learn to use his
rifle: aud when he grew to know il,
he would probably want himself to
see better and take to his glasses
again.
DIFFICULT CASES.
But clear cases of that sort are rare
and there is no opportunity to try and
trace the nervousness back to its
source. All that the musketry officer
has is the man himself: a puzzled
rather shamefsced man. who for nc
reason at all that he can find. trem
blcs when he goes down with his
rifle. or breaks into u sweat. or can
not see clearly: and he has to pu,
heart into that man and make him
himself.
These are the most difficult and
the most intereseting eases that an in
struc;or has to handle. He has to
watch them closely. be ready TO en-
courage them, zee at once when they
are doing better. II he once lets them
think that he despises them. IL he
MERELY tries to discipline them. IL he
makes them afraid to speak OF them
selves. he will do nothing. For he
never knows that there may not be
some simple thing. like that mans