CALL TO YOUTH

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 243, 15 October 1942, Page 2

CALL TO YOUTH

PRESENT U.S. ARMY T00 OLD "BEST SOLDIERS UNDER 20." ARMY SECRETARY'S APPEAL.

P.A, Gable.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14.

Stressing the importance of lowering the draft age to 18, Mr Stimson, the Secretary for War, told the House of Representatives Military Committee that the United States wants in 1934 to have the largest Air Force, with sustaining units, which production and transportation would permit. He said that a personnel of 2,200,000 for the Air Forces was a conservative estimate. Any changes would be upward.

Mr Stimson explained that plans for the induetion of younger men v/ere based upon history and experience. "All the major wars in which the United States have been engaged in in ihe past have been earried through by men under 20 years. The simple fact is that they are better soldiers and never in our history have we so mueli needed exceptional soldiers. Youth eonstitutes the indispensable kind of men necessary to win this war." Mr Stimson warned the Committee tLat statistics showed that the Army was getting too old with too large a pereentage of men over 40 who ought not to do the kind of fighting the American Armies are doing now. He said that the men at present were allowed a rninimum of 12 months' training compared with two years for the Germans, "because we think Americans train more quickly than Germans. "It is not pleasant for me to consign the sons and grandsons of my friends to the hideous maelstrom of modern war, but if we want to save civilisation that is the only road to follow," Mr Stimson ended. General Marshall said that the average age of the combat Army had risen to a point unacceptable to the War Department. He added that he was investigating the possibility of releasing older draftees from the Army after drafting younger men. General Marshall opposed a provision in the Bill that men under 20 must be given a year's training before they were sent into combat. He explained that unexpected emergencies might require a shortening of the period. _V