Evening star., 1941-02-24
Combat Studies
Begun by29th
AT Fort Meade
10000 Officers and
Men Settle Down
For Year Of Training
BY CARTER BROOKE JONES,
Star Staff Correspondent.

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md,
Feb. 24-At chill daybreak 10000
officers and men of the 29th Division
were summoned to school today-to
blackboards, frozen fields and shops
where the arts of war are taught.
They were called by the bugles to
study a subject as ancient as their
race, these National Guardsmen
from the District, Virginia, Mary
land and Pennsylvania, but their
text books are new and intricate,
calling for mastery of machines
and problems never imagined by
the old warriors in Valhalla.
The confusion of mobilizing In
their armories, trekking to camp
and moving into barracks was over,
and, after a long holiday week end,
these citizen soldiers settled down
to the first day in the training
course designed to make them a
finely tempered weapon of combat
within year, ready for any even
tuality the future may cast
Most of these men are not raw
recruits. They've been in the Guard
for varying periods, some for many
years, and they've been to summer
camps and maneuvers. But this Is
different. This is the most extern
sive and intensive training course
ever designed in peacetime for
Americas citizen soldiers-a mobil-
ization you have to 60 back to 1917
to parallel.
Only Laughter and Banter.
But they're ready to give their
year, these young men. They've left
lathes. desks. sample cases, law
books. ploughs, drafting boards,
ledgers. That it may turn out to be
more than year of training has
occurred to them, but there was
only laughter and banter as they
fell into detachments this morning
for the opening day of this hard
ening, conditioning school.
For the next six months this divi-
sion will be a world apart as it
studies its role in contemporary
combat and the part each unit
within it must play. After next
September l, the division, developed
into compact. precise fighting
team by then. will move out-some-
where. 1t will join larger bodies of
troops-corps, field armies-for big
scale maneuvers.
Maj. Gen. Milton A. Reckord
commanding the division, set out to
see that each regiment and each
unit within the regiment follows
the course Of instruction prescribed
by the War Department.
Al Cs of Soldering.
The first 13 weeks will be devoted
to the soldier as an individual, the
smaller units-squads, platoons
companies or batteries. Next will
come the school of the regiment and
the brigade, finally the division
maneuvering as a whole and with
in its mobile components. It's all
worked out, on paper, to the final
formation.
Close -order drill and other ele-
mentay subjects-the A B Cs OF
the soldier-will occupy units from
time to time, though this Is old stuff
to most of the 29th. Drills neces-
sarily are part of the picture. They
add that swift, involuntary precision
to troop movements which makes
bystanders say, That's a snappy
looking outfit" And they are sup
posed to instill in the soldier an
instructive obedience to orders that
is invaluable in battle.
But much of the. divisional train
ing period will be concentrated on
the many specialties which the
modern army has developed-weap-
ons, large and small; motor me-
chanics, communications, intelli-
gence, engineering, chemical war
fare, armorers' craft, medical serv-
ice, staff work, administration,
physical training, bands, air OBJ
servation. Schools for each of these
subjects have been prescribed. Most
Of these courses began today. Some
will start later.
A detail of officers and enlisted
men has started examining, grad
ually, every man in the division for
vocational classification. This is in
tended to form the basis of shifting
specialists to points where they are
needed. The same process for Sc
lective service recruits is being car
ried out by the Regular Army.