years later, the handwriting looks the same but command of grammar, syntax, and
rhetoric is excellent, with only an occasional odd choice in wording giving an
exotic flavor.
Our public schools no longer give good value. We
remain strong in science and engineering but even students in those subjects are
handicapped by failures of our primary and secondary schools and by cutback in
funding of research both public and private. Our great decline in education is alone
enough to destroy this country . . . but I offer no solutions because the only
solutions I think would work are so drastic as to be incredible.
Span of Time-Decline in Patriotism
and in the Quality of our Armed Forces
The high school I attended (1919-24) was an early experiment in the junior
and senior high school method. The last year of grammar school was joined with the
freshman class as ‘:junior high” while the sophomores, Juniors, and seniors were
senior high.
There was a company of junior ROTC in junior high and two companies in
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senior high. Military training gave no credit and was not compulsory; it was neither
pushed nor discouraged. A boy took it or not, as suited him and his parents. Some of
the subfreshman (aet. ca. 13 an.) were barely big enough to tote a Springfield
rifle.
Kansas City had a regiment of Federalized National
Guard, with one authorized drill per week, 3 hours
each Wednesday evening. For this a private was paid
69~, a PFC got a dollar, and a corporal got big money- $1.18.
The required & paid weekly drill was not all, as about half of the regiment
showed up on Sundays at the “Military Country Club”-acres of raw wood lot until the
regiment turned it into rifle range, club house, stables, etc. No pay for Sundays.
Two weeks encampment per year, with pay. For most of the regiment, this was their
only vacation, two weeks then being standard.
That regiment ran about 96% authorized strength. About 1921 Congress
authorized the CMTC, Citizens Military Training Corps. It proved very popular. A
month of summer training in camp at an Army post, continued through 4 years, could
(if a candidate’s grades were satisfactory) result in certification for commission
in the reserve. Civilians submitted to military discipline in CMTC but were not
subject to court martial. Offenders could be sent home or turned over to civilian
police, depending on the offense.. There were few offenses.
CMTC candidates got 3~ per mile to and from their homes, no other money.
In 1925 I was appointed midshipman. There were 51 qualified applicants
trying for that one appointment.
240 of my class graduated; 130 fell by the wayside. One of that 130 resigned
voluntarily; all the others resigned involuntarily, most of them plebe year for
failure in academics (usually mathematics), the others were requested to resign over
the next three years for academic, physical, or other reasons. A few resigned
graduation day through having failed the final physical examination for
commissioning. Three more served about one year in the Fleet, then resigned-but
these three volunteered after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 28 of the 129 who left the
service involuntarily managed to get back on active duty in World War Two.
So with four exceptions all of my class stayed in the Navy as long as the
Navy would have them. About 25% were killed in line of duty or died later of wounds.
Neither at the Academy nor in the Fleet did I ever hear a midshipman or officer talk
about resigning. While it is likely that some thought about it, all discussion
tacitly carried the assumption that the Navy was our life, the Fleet our home, and
that we would leave only feet first or when put out to pasture as too old.
Enlisted men: When I entered the Fleet, before the Crash of ’29 and about a
year before unemployment became a problem, Navy recruiting offices were turning down
19 out of 20 volunteers; the Army was turning down 5 out of 6. The reenlistment rate
was high; the desertion rate almost too small to count.
Span of Time-Today in the Armed Forces
I have said repeatedly that I am opposed to conscription at any time, peace