A Career for Young Men

There'd be no war today,

If mothers all would say

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.

Thus, in 1915, Tin Pan Alley put to banal words & music the peacetime U.S. revulsion against soldiering. The words, if not the tune, still rattled around in the heads of U.S. military leaders. They wondered how soon after the Korean job was finished they would begin to hear the refrain again. For that reason, and because it was unwise to unfold all the facts of an unpleasant situation just before an election--and because no one had any clear-cut plan anyhow--the Administration talked all around the problem last week but never got to the truth. The truth: for years to come, virtually every able-bodied young American will have to take on soldiering as a part-time career.

The Administration knew, or said it knew, what it wanted. As of last reports, Harry Truman wanted a military force of 3,000,000 men (though one high-ranking military man hinted last week that, if peace "looms up big," the services might settle for 2,300,000). Besides that, the Administration talked of a stand-by force of millions of trained men who could be mobilized at a moment's notice. Its policy now is to match U.S. world obligations with U.S. strength. Soon the U.S. would dispatch five divisions and an air force of upwards of 800 planes to Europe. In keeping with this stern-sounding policy, these divisions would be combat-seasoned regulars from Korea; at least one would be sent to Europe direct, without being given furloughs in the U.S.

"We're Not Taking Orders." But was the policy actually so stern? The test would come as the Administration moved to fill out the quota of men it needs to put into uniform. Where were the additional men coming from? To maintain a force of 3,000,000 at constant strength, 750,000 replacements would be needed every year. Who were they going to be?

There were plans to draw on National Guard divisions. Four of the 27 Guard divisions had already been called up. The Defense Department might call more. It might not. It might rotate all the divisions in active service. It might not. Defense Secretary George Marshall told a National Guard Association convention only that he thought the Guard ought to be strengthened. He added portentously: "If things work out as we hope, there will be no war, but there will be a great deal of service."

The Guard, certainly in better shape than before World War II, would still need a thorough overhauling before it was ready for combat. It needed training, was still racked with Guard politics, jealous of its prerogatives.

"I Have Asked the Congress." Organized reserves had been called and would go on being called. But no one could, or would, say how many would be clapped back into uniform. No one wanted to call any of them; they were men who had served in World War II, who had families, who were in business. National Guard divisions also contained many veterans, but thousands of young recruits had flocked to the Guard's ranks. Many of the reservists felt put upon, and with reason. Some businessmen were showing a reluctance to hire them; some insurance companies had stopped writing term insurance on them. Last week the armed forces announced plans to slacken off in demands upon the reserves.

In the end, the burden would fall on the nation's youth, 1,100,000 of whom turn 18 every year. Assuming that 30% of them would be rejected as physically or mentally unfit, the fit would be barely enough to fill the annual quota of 750,000. Under the present law they could volunteer or be drafted. But last week, adding confusion and solving nothing, President Truman raised the question again of universal training. He left out the "military," as he always does in discussing the ticklish subject. To the convention of National Guardsmen the President said: "Eight times I have asked the Congress, since I have been President, for a universal training program for the young men of the United States."

Instead of U.M.T.--U.M.S. Presumably he would ask again for such a program. But U.M.T. at best was a questionable solution to the problem. The softhearted U.M.T. bill now in Congress requires six months of basic training in a so-called National Security Training Corps. The trainee, scrupulously protected during his powder-puff training from the dread (to politicians) prospect that he might take on the rough cast of the regular soldier, would have several choices on graduation: 1) six more months of N.S.T.C. training (during which he would not be used in combat), 2) enlistment in the regular armed forces or 3) escape for a time by enlistment in the Guard or the Reserves or by enrollment in a military academy or a college R.O.T.C. program.

For all practical purposes U.M.T., as it was being considered, was not a feeder system anyone could depend on. Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey wanted, instead, six months' basic training followed by two solid years in the ranks. This would be U.M.S. (Universal Military Service), not U.M.T. It also had the backing of Marine Reserve Brigadier General Melvin Maas, ex-Congressman from Minnesota, who last week was named to a Pentagon committee to restudy the whole reserve problem. "It will be expensive as hell," Maas observed. "But we ought to be able to afford it if the Russians can."

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