Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

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