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Description: It is very realistic when the men have concealed themselves and their guns in the woods or underbrush. Then when the imaginary foe reach the appointed spot the signal is given and the sharp staccato reports of the machine guns rend the quiet forest air until it sounds like real war.

Description: In spite of the motor-truck, automobile and motorcycle, the horse and mule still hold an important place in the army as is evidenced by this column of three hundred canvas covered mule drawn transport wagons driving at Camp Hancock.

Description: There are many special branches of training. Possibly the most unique of these is the school of deceptive — Camouflage. Men with artistic ability are here instructed in the fine art of making things seem what they are not. It is necessary to camouflage everything conceivable to mislead the ever watchful eyes of the aviators and submarines. Great ships are painted to look less than half their size and rendered almost invisible at a distance. Batteries, ammunition dumps, roads and everything else are made to look like the natural surrounding country. Even men are camouflaged to look like the trees from which they are observing the enemy’s activities, or in which they are stringing telephone wires. It is a science as well as an art. The side of the building shown here is being transformed into a section of woods which when covered with green branches will be quite inconspicuous.

Description: There is another branch of our artillery which is in training also. The huge cannon and mortars for our coast defense are permanently mounted so as to guard the larger harbors and other strategic points along the coast, while lighter mobile pieces are provided which can be moved to unprotected harbors if necessary. This view of a number of our 12 inch mortars in on of the coast defense fortifications in Florida shows the huge shells being rolled up on special trucks which carry them at just the right height for loading in the breech of the mortars. We have many Cubans in training at this place and they are the men seen here.

Description: Now and then some soldier will wait outside to say goodbye to his little boy and say it with a smile. If there is any patriotic duty which should be impressed more than any other on the mothers, sisters, wives, sweethearts, and some of the fathers too, of our soldiers, it is to smile when you say au revere, goodbye for the present. No matter how you feel inside, smile. It takes real courage but that smile will do more than a ton of bombs to win the war.

Description: Our companies of Coast Artillery, however, are not entirely made up of gunners and their assistants for the big guns. There are also infantry for repelling attacks should the enemy succeed in making a landing. Here we see a company of them at Key West, Florida running through the gate of Monticello Tower and the old abandoned fort to aid their comrades who are repelling an attack by students of the Naval Aviation School during a sham battle.

Description: After being loaded the mortars are elevated to the proper angle to drop the shells on the hostile fleet and at the proper instant they are set off with a deafening roar hurling their missiles of destruction far out to sea. There are numerous other varieties of guns used in our coast defense, among them the long range disappearing guns, but there is not time to show or speak of these now.

Description: After the preliminary training in all these various branches of the service is over and shipping tonnage is available our new made army, with its full equipment on its back, marches to the railroad station to entrain for some port on the Atlantic coast.

Description: Another exercise for part of the infantry is throwing hand grenades, a variety of bombs, some of which look like a baseball. These are thrown after a time fuse has been ignited and so call for quick work. The thrower never balks. The hand grenade is an old device used before the invention of the gun. Its use became a lost art after guns came into general use. In the Russo-Japanese war, however, it appeared again on the field of action and is now in very general use. Naturally, the range is very limited. Although some experts have been able to throw the 1.2 pound size a distance of 200 feet, 120 feet is considered a good average. Special bomb raids are planned to be carried out by a small squad composed of expert bomb throwers, a guard to protect them so all their attention can be devoted to throwing the missiles, and bomb carriers to supply the thrower. The latter must be able to replace the thrower in case of an accident. Sometimes there is also a relief party a little behind the main raiding squad. In real service on the other side a week or more is sometimes spent in rehearsing for such a raid so that it can be carried out with clock-like precision.

Description: Going into the shallow firing trench we find the men hard at work developing their marksmanship. Our army in training as well as the forces over there on the battle front are now fully supplied with rifles using a rimless cartridge which does not jam in operation as the old style of rim cartridges so often did.

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