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.

Two Months Needed To Return Militia

1916

LACK OF CARS WILL BE PROBLEM FOR WAR DEPARTMENT.

"How Long Are We Here For?" Is Still the Question at Border Camps —All Troops to See Service.

WASHINGTON, D. C. — If an order should come now for the withdrawal of all the National Guard regiments from the Mexican border it would take two months to return them to their home stations, and perhaps longer, according to military authorities here and at the border camps.

The War Department will face a genuine problem in the lack of available rolling stock to transport the troops to their destinations. Even in sending 15,000 of the Guardsmen home during the last two weeks there was much difficulty and delay.

Border Service for All.

There is no definite answer yet to the off-repeated question in the camps on the border, "How long are we here for?" Secretary Baker favors giving all the State troops a chance for the training to be acquired on the border line and it is said that the Guardsmen who are still in State camps will be sent to the border to relieve men now serving there.

In response to requests from Illinois, Secretary Baker is reported to have given assurance that the Illinois militiamen will be back home by Nov. 1, their places, if necessary, to be filled by Guardsmen from other States who have not yet seen border service. Senator Lewis of Illinois made an urgent appeal for relief of the Illinois Guardsmen from service so that the men could resume their business and the youths be sent back to schools and colleges. The Illinois regiments have been on the border four months.

15,000 Mustered Out.

The 15,000 Guardsmen returned from the border by the recent order of the War Department have been ordered mustered out of the Federal service. The order affects three New York regiments, two from New Jersey, two from Illinois, two from Missouri and one each from California, Oregon, Washington and Louisiana, and twenty-eight companies of coast artillery troops, most of them being from the Atlantic coast.

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