Evening star., 1944-11-19
u. S. Demobilization Plans
Stress Justice and Security
Every Effort Being Made to Guarantee Fair
Selection Of Those to Come Home First
and Jobs When They Return
By Nathan Kafx


Plans formulated for turning Americas
GI Joe back to plain John Doe have
been developed only after an intense
study Of the past
As Brig. Gen. Browning of the Army
Service Forces said In October, 1913,
by analyzing the experiences Of the
last war we are trying to profit by the
mistakes made then, and to define the
various problems to be solved in de.
mobilization" Never before has history,
our own and other countries-partic-
ularly England 's-been SO avidly sifted
for its lessons.
Not unexpectedly, more seems to have
been found In the English experience
than in the American to serve as guide
to our planners. Even acceptance of
public responsibility for planning the
soldiers release and his reorientation
into civilian life has no parallel in our
own past, while having been a part of
English policy long before the last war.
America Has Poor Veteran Record.
Researchers have dug out Of Americas
past an unfortunate history OF shoddy
treatment of veterans. The record tells
Of soldiers in the Revolutionary War,
the War of 1912 and the Mexican War
being dismissed at the end Of the fight
ing with hardly semblance of plan
for their orderly discharge or re-estab-
hshment as civilians; of large Northern
armies in the Civil War being let out
rapidly on hasty plans only drawn after
Lees defeat; of Southern armies simply
disbanded; of soldiers from the Span
ish-American War also being given
short consideration; of these exper-
iences setting the precedent for the "de-
mobilization of expediency" in World
War I.
Discussion of rehabilitation was more
abundant during the last than preceding
wars. Americans advanced many plans,
but planners were demobilized even
more quickly than servicemen when the
war ended.
England, on the other hand, had long
taken her demobilizations seriously, the
last one even more so than the others.
Public discussion during World War I
bore fruit in an official program later
embodied into administration. !
Planning Leans to English.
The American Army has borrowed
some pointers from the English method
of the last war in its plan announced
September 6, 1914, for partial demobili-
zation after the defeat of Germany.
Planners appear determined this time to
avoid repetition of Americas failures
In l9l8-1920. Then, choice of method
of rehabilitation was determined chief
ly by powerful pressures brought to
bear on the administration and Con-
gress to bring the boys back home" !"
The Army yielded to the tide Of senti-
ment and arranged speedy system of
discharge. It instituted the unit" plan,
quickest of the methods proposed for
demobilization. Under it, military units
were kept intact, so far as possible, and
discharged in a body.
Over 5000 enlisted men and $1,000
officers were demobilized in the month
OF December, 1918, alone. An average of
about third of million soldiers were
discharged each month thereafter,
through mid-1919, at which time almost
all who had been in foreign service had
been returned to the United States.
As the more thoughtful had antic-
ipated. this hasty process worked hard
ship on both the ex-servicemen and
the country as whole. Soldiers, re-
leased SO rapidly and in such great num-
bers, fell into helter-skelter competi-
ton for jobs with each other and with
workers demobilized from war indus
tries. Unsettled veterans furthered an
instability of business conditions that
soon billowed into the severe price in
dation and boom and crash of Americas
early postwar years.
Some aspects of the English plan Of
fered us better model. Her technique
Of rehabilitation was governed by the
concept that during the war the in
dustrial population was to be looked on
as military reserve, but that after the
war, the military was to be considered
an industrial reserve. Consequently,
England planned to demobilize her men
Individually to f1t the manpower needs
OF her economy. A list of trades was
established in the order Of their ma
tional importance. Men in the most crit
tcal industries we're to be released first.
Further preference was to go to married
men, to those longer in the service and
to those who had suffered disability.
So far as it bases rehabilitation on
the individual soldier, the announced