Not Yet Well Trained

1916

POINT ISABEL, Texas — Gen. James Parker, commander of the Brownsville district, takes issue with those agitating the return of the Illinois troops, asserting that the training of the Federalized Guardsmen in the Rio Grande Valley is only half completed.

"Should the troops under instruction here go home now, I would feel that they had only half completed their work, that they left it undone, unfinished," he said. "In the United States Army it takes three months to train a recruit. A large portion of the National Guard were no better than recruits. Their training has been badly handicapped by storms, and by all the necessities involved in the preparation of camps in a wild country.

"They came here hoping to become fit for war. It will require some weeks of training before they can do so. They have still much work before becoming acquainted with the details of field service, with the proper action of men when in camp and in battle. This they can learn here; they cannot learn it at home. Training in field exercises and in combat exercises is important. It includes instruction in scouting, reconnoitering, outpost duty, advance and rear guard duty, patrol duty, in the use of cover on the field of battle, in the proper method of advancing when attacking an enemy's position, which varies always according to the terrain, and in fire discipline. These things can be learned in time of peace. If not learned in time of peace they must be learned in war and men will be killed unnecessarily.

"The men are hardened now and can stand long marches, and their time can be employed to the best advantage in learning the real art of war. A few weeks more and this will have been accomplished.

"Again, a good soldier does not wish to go home until this matter on the border has been settled, until the Government has no longer any use for his services."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 3.