The Modern Soldier Can Not Be Made In A Day

Author : Henry Breckinridge
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330513842
Total Pages : 22 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (138 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Modern Soldier Can Not Be Made in a Day written by Henry Breckinridge and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Modern Soldier Can Not Be Made in a Day: The Army Is a Learned Profession, With Intricate, Clearly Defined, and Difficult Specialties, and Men Must Be Carefully and Thoroughly Trained Five years ago about this time I was sitting in the office of a prominent Baltimore attorney. I was talking army to him. He was an unusually intelligent man, conservative, fairly learned, at least in the law, and with a reasonable knowledge of affairs. In the course of the conversation he asked me - Why should a man go into the Army? What is there in it to make it a life work? After he has learned to drill and shoot, his life is simply a matter of routine. Larger talents do not bring any larger financial returns. And, altogether, I can not see that the Army is any place for a man who wishes to make the most of his resources of intellect and character. The attitude of this man is not an uncommon one among intelligent Americans. The European war has drawn the attention of the public mind to things military to an unwonted degree. But there remains on the part of many people a lack of appreciation of what the military service is, of what is required to make a soldier and an officer, and of the fact that the military profession, of a verity, is a learned profession. Despite the vivid demonstration of the last year, there still lingers the impression in some quarters that all you have to do to make a soldier is to put a uniform on his back, shoes on his feet, rifle in his hand, give him ammunition, a knapsack, and the untrained American patriot is prepared to cope with the best trained soldier in the world. The task yet remains to dispel completely the illusion that a sword in the hand, a strap on the shoulder, and the fire of patriotism in the eye of the American volunteer are all that is required to make an officer fit to lead the improvised soldier to victorious conflict with trained armies. What is endeavored to be demonstrated in this article is that the Army is a learned profession; that to be a successful officer of the Army requires as high a development of the intellect and character as is needed for success in any other learned profession; that the Army is not only a learned profession, but that it is a learned profession with as many intricate, clearly defined, and difficult specialties as are to be found, for instance, in the great profession of medicine. There are two great divisions of the military profession - first, technical, and, second, tactical and strategical. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.