BRIGHTER ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1941, Page 8

BRIGHTER ARMY

4. SOLDIERING TO MUSIC BETTER CLOTHING AND BOOTS. EVENTS IN SOLDIER'S LIFE.

Up al six in the morning, reveille at ’rentham. with the camp band's crisp itarch music rousing every street of lutments. Soldiering is brighter than 1 used to be and the band has an imiGrtam part in the new method. Each mil has the band with it twice a week o 'lift'' the route marches or to bright•n other activities. Every morning al 0.3(1 the band turns out for the ehangng of the guard. Music lightens the lours and actually speeds up the trainDR. Today the soldier packs a lot into lis day. Breakfast is served at 7 a.m. Training begins at 8.30. and goes on un-

til noon when there is an interval of an hour and a half for a light lunch and spell. The hard work of the day ends al 4.30. and dinner is served al j 5 30. The ’.914 soldier has recollections of i 60 men to a hut. sleeping and eating in the same place, and he rubs his eyes i ! when he is told that the same sized ; huts now take only 46 sleepers—there | i are separate hutments for meals —the . stretcher beds are in pairs with a winI dow between each pair. An innova- ; lion is the light wooden partition beI tween each set of stretchers. It swings ! back during the day but is brought I out between the beds at night as a proi tective measure in case of colds or 1 1 other infectious troubles. Soldiers still do their own washing j and 1914 sees no novelty in the hot I ■ water —the wringers—but he will push ; ! his hat back when he sees electric I I irons. Training camps have not yet; I risen to the luxury of porcelain baths, j : but there are many places where hot i and cold showers can be enjoyed. As '■ Charles E. Wheeler remarks in his arj tides, Trentham had something of the i sort in the old days, but then one had ;to gamble on temperatures, and the i water sujiply generally because all the showers came on together and went oil' i when someone clothed in authority ! thought the men had had enough. T'emi porauires fluctuated wilfully from a I lobster red io an arctic blue. Today j showers are under individual control. \ ' Compared with previous occasions | the last war gave the soldiers uniforms 1 which were a great, advance in comfort ! and utility from the skin-tight dress I with its ornamental pipeclay and polI ished brass; but today's battledress ; makes another long stride forward. I Easily kept neat, loose and innocent ! of gewgaws, it is so comfortable that 1 many officers would like to be permitI ted to wear it on leave. This uniform j is of New Zealand khaki serge and ! many soldiers prefer it to the dress ■ they wore in civil life, The soldier j also has a working uniform of khaki I drill. In footwear it would be difficult to t improve on "Bill Massey s Bouts of i the old days <says Charles E. Wheelern ■ Probably the former Prime Minister ■ had as little to do with army boots as ■ the Minister of Marine, but many , things were labelled with his name be- ' cause in the last war it stood for the ■ State in the New Zealand soldier's ! language. If the cheese issued for dry rations happened to be hard or un- : palatable it was called "Bill MasSey's,’' often with a sanguine adjective to give i emphasis to the term of derision. But i in boots it was invariably a term of ! high praise. New Zealand manufacturers today are turning out a splendid boot with i sewn soles and pliable uppers. Some i makes are more comfortable than others, and the soldier takes his chance on this. Training is hard on boots and the heavy army issue, equipped with heel and toe-plates, rarely go longer than six weeks without calling ' for repair. The men are encouraged : to take their worn boots to the centra! j repair shop, where with modern equipment, a stall of nine skilled tradesmen i are kept busy isandling a weekly averf age of 500 pairs. They did over 3000 i repairs for the men of the First Eche- : lon. Woollens, also made in New Zealand. are uf finer texture than those of the last war. but the three pairs of j >ocks issued to each man are. as before. comfortable and thick, as every ; heav\ boot marcher of experience I wants them. Every article t>|' the soldier's equipment. like his dietary, is the result of careful research and long experience Nothing nowadays is the ouic< me of chance or mere prejudice, and the modern soldier has a brighter time, if no less st;xr.uolis and no less ti.ingerous. because the modern arin> has üb>irilir.a'.'sl everyth.mg t* l utility m

'he fulh-'.t sense »' that term, which mean ■ that the man me uniform ;.s the first ism-'ideration. instead of the