The Washington times., 1918-08-11
RECRUITS ARE
OFTEN AFRAID
TO FIFE GUN

LONDON. Aug. lila man who
! rides a bicycle wonders how on earth
1t is possible to fall of. just as a man
who is learning to ride wonders how
on earth IL is possible to stay on.
That is a contrast which every
musketry instructor must keep con-
tinually in his mind. II he does not
he will forget that to every recruit
the rife Is a new and perhaps a dan
gerous thing. He approaches II with
respect. Exactly as with the bicycle
he wonders not only how he will man
age 1t. but what IL will do with him.
That Is why you cannot drill men
into shooting as you can drill them
into forming fours. and why with
harshness and impatience you may
spoil a good man at musketry. You
are doing more than to teach him to
do a new thing, you are putting q
strange instrument into his hands. as
you might give him a curious animal.
and he has to become accustomed to
II. II you let him use II wrongly, IL
you let him fire his first shot with a
loose grip and hurt himself with the
kick. you may make him permanently
afraid OF it.
That is an obvious carlessness
which every good instructor avoids,
but he has to do more, he has to re-
member that every man with imagi-
nation enough to learn at all must
have q certain gun shyness at first
even IL he never shows 1t. and must
wonder what the first shot will feel
like That, as every instructor knows,
is a hard thing to keep perpetu-
ally and consciously in mind
Show Nervousness.
Gun shyness Ia a well chosen ex-
preston and In the exact sense OF II
every man is gun shy at the begin
ming, but II is used more often sim
ply to describe the more obvious
physical nervousness that some men
show when they first handle a rife.
1t Is very difficult to fnd cause for
it. 1t may perhaps be a repugnance
to sudden noise. a repugnance which,
IL you knew the mans past, you
would find to have shown itself In
other ways. At the same time II is
interesting to note that artillery Of
fcers do not hnd as much gun shy
ness among their men as might be
expected from the greater volume OF
noise. Or II may be the excessive
nervousness OF an imaginative man
at handling a dangerous thing for
the first time in his life, or 1t may. in
rare cases, be a definite fear of some
particular accident, a fear OF which
the man himself Is perfectly con-
scious.
II was in the case Of a man with
glasses who flinched badly at every
shot. He had a brother who also
wore glasses and who had been
blinded in one eye by a sudden ex-
plosion. He was in continual fear OF
the same accident. The only thing
was to put him to shoot without his
glasses. He was shortsighted but
could see well enough at the short
ranges. 1t did not matter at all that
at 500 and coo yards he could hit
nothing. At 200 and 800 he could
learn to use his rifle: and when he
grew to know 1t, 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 OFF,
GER has Is the man himself; a puzzled,
rather shamefaced man. who for
no reason at all that he can find,
trembles when he goes down with a
rifle, or breaks into a sweat, or can
not see clearly; and he has to put
heart into that man and make him
make a little more than the best Of
himself
These are the most difficult and
the most interesting cases that an in
structor has to handle. He has to
watch them closely, be ready to en-
courage them, see at once when they
are doing better. II he once lets them
think that he despises them, II 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
IL
fear of breaking his glasses, which
he can put right. IL only the man will
speak of 1t: and even IL there is not,
the more a man knows you are inter-
ested in him. the more he will try to
master himself