Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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school, or the holder of a judicial or quasi-judicial ofhce. The minimum age is set at 28 because it is believed that younger men had best serve in the combatant arms. The military knowledge thereby acquired will be useful to them if they should later be com- missioned in the judge Advocate Genera1's Department. As there is now a considerable surplus in the judge Advocate General's Department of the Officers' Reserve Corps above anticipated needs, appointments thereto are suspended for the time being. The primary purpose of the judge Advocate General's Department is to furnish legal advice to the President on military matters and to the Secretary of War and the Commanding Generals on whose staffs the officers of the department serve. A secondary, but important, purpose is to furnish legal advice to anybody in the Army who needs such advice in the performance of his official duties. The question may be asked: - why have lawyers in the Army? The Army is a fighting organization, what necessity is there for lawyers as a part of it? - The answer is that an army, if it is to be an army and not a mob, must have discipline. In order to have discipline, punishments must be imposed for crimes and military offenses, and the imposition of punishment must be prompt, certain, uniform as between offenses of like degree, and neither too light nor too severe. If the court-martial system seriously fails in any of these respects, the discipline of the Army, and therefore its military efficiency, will be much diminished. When we turn to the internal administration of the Army and to its business dealings, as in the purchase of supplies and the construction of build- ings, it is evident that these complicated transactions must also be conducted in a legal manner with due regard for the rights of all concerned, or else the efficiency of the Army will seriously suffer. For all these reasons lawyers in the Army are necessary. The question may be considered more in detail. As all readers of this yearbook know, the existence of every organism of the federal government and every act of every such organism must ultimately be referred to and based upon some provision of the Constitution. Every member of the Convention that framed the Constitution had been a witness of and many of them had been participants in the Revolutionary War, and they were under no illusions that the government which they were establishing would enjoy perpetual peace. In the preamble they stated that one of the reasons for the adop- tion of the Constitution was to provide for the common defense, and they repeated that expression in Article I, Section 8, enumerating the powers of Congress. That sec- tion also authorizes Congress to declare war, to raise and support armies and to 18

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THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT, UNITED STATES ARMY by COLONEL ARCHIBALD KING Judge Advocate General's Department, U. S. Army Harvard: A.B., 19033 A.M., 1904, LLB., 1906 HE judge Advocate General's Department is a staff department of the Army, as are the Quartermaster Corps, the Medical Department, the Finance Depart- ment, and others. At this time, it is composed of 113 ofhcers of the regular Army ranging in rank from The Judge Advocate General, who is a major general, down to captains. There are also 515 officers of the Judge Advocate General's Department in the Officers' Reserve Corps, of whom 205 are now on active duty. There are over 100 officers of the judge Advocate General's De- partment in the National Guard, all on active duty. All these ofhcers, regular, reserve, and National Guard, are lawyers. No soldiers are en- listed in or permanently assigned to the Judge Advocate General's Department, but soldiers of other branches of the service are often detailed to its offices as clerks, but soldiers of other branches of the service are often detailed to its offices as clerks, stenographers, and messengers. Vacancies in the Judge Advocate General's Department of the regular Army are Hlled by the transfer from other branches of regular officers who have had a legal ed- ucation before entering the Army, a source now pretty well exhaustedg by sending young officers of other branches of the regular Army to law school and afterwards transferring them to the judge Advocate General's Department, a method suspended during the present emergency, and by transfer to the regular Army of reserve officers of the judge Advocate General's Department between the ages of 50 and 36. To be eligible for an original appointment as captain fthe lowest gradeh in the judge Advocate General's Department of the Officers' Reserve Corps, an applicant must be a male citizen of the United States, between the ages of 28 and 37, who has been for at least four years either a practicing attorney in good standing, a teacher in a law 17

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make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. Pursuant to those constitutional provisions, Congress has passed many laws about the Army, one of the most important of which is the National Defense Act, originally enacted June 3, 1916 C39 Stat. 1665 and since amended many times. That act regulates the structure of the Army, its organization into regiments and other units, the rank of its personnel, the appointment, promotion, and retirement of its officers, the enlistment, promotion, and discharge of its soldiers, the several arms and staff departments, the Officers' Reserve Corps, the Enlisted Reserve Corps, the National Guard, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, the Citizens' Military Training Camps. Another very important act, the Pay Re- adjustment Act of June 10, 1922 142 Stat. 6255, fixes the pay and allowances of every- one in the Army. Every year, and in these troublous times much more often, Congress passes an appropriation act fixing the amounts of money which the Army may spend for various purposes. Another important enactment with reference to the Army is Chapter II of the act of june 4, 1920 Q41 Stat. 7872, called The Articles of War, which is a criminal code for the Army, enumerating offenses, providing for courts- martial, regulating their composition, jurisdiction, procedure, and powers, and the ap- proval, review, mitigation, suspension, and remission of their sentences. All these statutes and many others are assembled in Title 10, United States Code. The number and complexity of these laws require a considerable number of lawyers for their interpretation and construction. As a few samples of the questions which the judge advocates, the Army lawyers, are called upon to solve daily, the following are mentioned: Was a certain injury incurred in line of duty? Is a claim against the United States arising out of a collision between a civilian automobile and an army truck well founded, and may it lawfully be paid? May a man who has been convicted of a felony but who has since been pardoned be enlisted? Must the Quartermaster, who needs ten tons of gravel for the roads in the post, put an advertisement in the papers calling for bids and give the contract to the lowest bidder, even though that process may involve consider- able delay and inconvenience, or may he telephone to the nearest dealer in gravel and order it to be sent out at once? Is it lawful for a post commander to issue an order that no soldier under the grade of sergeant may own an automobile? The officers of the Judge Advocate General's Department are stationed at the headquarters of every division, corps, army, air district, corps area, and overseas de- 19