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.
As the real enemy do not sit around the open, waiting to be hit the way the targets do, the soldier has to learn to climb over obstacles to get where he is. Among the various devices to develop these climbing abilities is the high board fence, and here we see them going over — some have crossed and some are crossing still.
In actual war the enemy is not lined up in an open space as in the picture just shown, but all kinds of obstacles have to be overcome to reach him. So it is necessary to practice climbing over real and imaginary barbed wire entanglements. The line of posts here represents such obstructions. Although this is strenuous exercise it is a kindergarten game compared with the difficulties they will encounter later. Of course this practice is essential for all infantry work and not especially for bayonet practice, as a man never can tell whether it will be his cartridges or his bayonet that he will need to use when he has crossed the wire entanglements and crater holes of No-man’s Land to beard the enemy in his trench.
Let us now go back to the special training of our soldiers. The infantry forms the great bulk of the army but their activities are exceedingly varied. However, all of them must be handy with a gun so the rifle ranges are among the most active sections of the cantonments. Our soldiers are taught to shoot at definite objects and not in zones as the Germans are. Various targets beside the regular bull’s eye surrounded by rigs are used, such as dummy heads just showing above a distant trench, or figures of men in different positions.
As few can go to the cantonments to see this transformation, the soldiers sometimes are taken to the neighboring cities as a living object lesson. Such parades most effectively instruct us, the plain, ordinary citizens, as to the effect of military training. Whatever the weather an appreciative audience gathers, and unconsciously absorbs the true meaning of the freedom of a democracy as distinguished from the tyranny of anarchy. It is an example of voluntary submission to discipline for the general good of all.
In visiting a cantonment you do not get an idea of the number of men in training unless you are there during a review. Then the magnitude of the camp is realized as you see wave after wave almost as far as you can see, marching forward like an irresistible force. More impressive, however, than their number is the physical transformation which the men, both individually and as a body have undergone during their few months of intensive training. The motley crowd has become a unified army of efficient soldiers.
Drills with blunt wooden bayonents when the different thrusts, parries and counter thrusts can be tried out without serious danger of injuring the combatants.
No action taken by Congress since the declaration of war against Germany had as important bearing on the outcome of the War as the authorization of the selective draft. Before its enactment it loomed like a huge bogey in the imagination of many. After it was in force, like any other bogey its terrors vanished, and every day the wisdom of the action became more apparent. The energy and speed with which we pushed not only the draft registration but the arrangements to train those selected was a shock to the Kaiser an his advisors. In this action in spite of their words to the contrary, they saw their doom. They knew that neither our money nor our food alone could win the war. On the other hand they knew that our man-power, if exerted to the fullest, could. During the Civil War, under the volunteer system, the North sang “We’re coming, Father Abraham, 500,000 strong.” But Father Abraham had to wait a long while and finally resorted to the draft before they arrived. But within less than a year, by the selective draft, “Father Woodraw” had four times that number, not coming but here, and millions more on the way. How this host of men is cared for and transformed into efficient soldiers in an almost incredibly short time will be better realized as we see those men in their various camp activities. While the preliminary registration was being taken and the selective draft made, the construction of sixteen cantonments in different parts of the country to house this new army was started and within a few months they were ready for occupancy. Each cantonment is a complete city in itself, accommodating from 30,000 to 40,000 men. Within a few months after ground was broken for Camp Meade, it became the second city in Maryland as regards population. All the cantonments are built on the same general plan and, with the exception of the color of the soil and the surrounding topography, look alike. A paved or cement road in the shape of a great horseshoe or U, lined with warehouses and other buildings, encloses a great, flat, undulating central area used for the drill ground. In somewhat separated groups stand the two-story unpainted pine barracks, each group for a regiment. The general impression is that of a western boom-town. However, it is a complete city with all modern improvements, water and sewer system, electric lights, fire protection, buildings, hospitals, and other buildings. The residential sections are composed of the concentrated apartments called barracks. The cantonment shown here is Camp Lewis in the State of Washington. The men in the foreground are members of the Intelligence Division of the Signal Corps who are making observations and telephoning their findings to headquarters. It should be added that beside the sixteen cantonments referred to there are numerous National Guard Camps and other special camps which have been constructed.
To those camps our selected representatives come: bankers, salesmen, artists, coal heavers, farmers, day laborers, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, all these classes and conditions, and take their position as equals. Later their ability, energy, and temperamental fitness will differentiate them into various ranks from privates to corporals and so on up without reference to what they were in private life. They first pass a series of physical examinations and mental tests by specialists and are separated into three general classes: Those fit for army service over there; those fit for domestic service but not for foreign, and those unavailable for either. It is the training of the first of these classes that we will now follow. After physical examination they are vaccinated and inoculated to guard against small pox and typhoid fever. The largest percentage of home sickness during the first two weeks in camp is doubtless due to the effects of these inoculations. The next step is to quarantine the new men for the next two weeks, which is not as bad as it sounds, for it merely means that they, possibly several thousand of them, will have to live separated from the rest of the soldiers until danger of their bringing contagious diseases with them is past.
However, their training does not wait for quarantine but begins at once. At the quarter-master’s they are fitted with khaki suits, shoes, leggings, socks, underwear, shirts, blankets, etc. Next they are assigned to their beds in the barracks and taught how to make them up and turn the covers down just right. After a few days training a very decided change in their appearance takes place. No longer do they look like the string of marchers in a political rally, but like real soldiers. It is hard to realize that this is the same squad shown in the last picture, but a week or so later. The experience of a well paid traveling representative of an old and wealthy bond firm, whose wife came to visit him after he had been in camp several weeks is typical. He writes: “I shall never forget my wife’s surprise when she saw me. ‘Fred’ she cried, after I had kissed her, ‘You look magnificent! All your fleshiness is gone. You’re so tall and straight and brown. Your eyes are so clear and bright — Your arm is as hard as steel. You are a soldier, aren’t you?’“