Citizens Military Training Camp - Defender Yearbook (Camp Meade, MD)

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THE DEFENDER as at THE TRAINING CAMP MGVEMENT Voluntary military training for the purpose of good citizenship and national defense goes back in the memory of the present generation to the camps which were organized in the United States just prior to the World War. In 1913 under the direction of Major General Leonard Wood two vacation camps were held for students from educational in- stitutions, one at Monterey, California, and the other at Gettysburg, Pa., the men paying their own expenses. Four camps were held in the following year at Monterey, Ludington, Mich., Asheville, N. C., and Burlington, Vt. In his address to Congress on December 8, 1914, President Wilson said: We must depend in every time of national peril, in the future as in the past, not upon a standing army, nor yet upon a reserve army, but upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms. We should encourage such training and make it a means of discipline, which our young men will learn to value. In 1915 similar camps were held at Plattsburg, San Francisco, American Lake, Lud- ington and Fort Sheridan. In the same year for business and professional men training was offered in two camps at Plattsburg Barracks and also at Fort Sheridan, Ill., the Pre- sidio of San Francisco and American Lake. Thus was launched what afterwards became known as The Plattsburg Movement , fully described in an admirable volume by Professor Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard University. The graduates of these camps formed the Military Training Camps Associ- ation, which helped to insert section 54 in the National Defense Act, June 3, 1916, author- izing voluntary summercamps at the expense of the Government. Under this provision I2 camps were held in 1916 and the Association effected a far-reaching and vigorous or- ganization, which was placed at the service of the War Department in the emergency of 1917. It suggested to the Secretary of War that the civilian camps proposed for that year be converted into oflicers' training camps. The suggestion was adopted and rep- resentatives of the Association were appointed Civilian Aides to the Adjutant General, thus placing it on an official basis as an adjunct to the Government in the prosecution of the War. This was done because it appeared the logical organization to represent the War Service Exchange thruout the countryw. Its facilities made possible later the recruiting of over a quarter of a million of specialists for different branches of the Army and the Navy, including the enrollment in Chicago alone of over 7,ooo skilled mechanics for Ordnance regiments within three weeks. Similar help was given to the Aviation Section, Balloon Service, Tank, Signal and Motor Transport Corps and the Association received formal than-ks from the Secretary of War, from high Officers of the Staff and from De- partment and Camp Commanders thruout the country. In 1918 the War Department made the Military Training Camps Association the official agency for the preliminary examination of candidates for commissions and this plan produced remarkable results in securing the right man for the right place without loss of time and at a minimum expense. It was, perhaps, the most striking illustration of the value of civilian co-operation thru- out the War. ' After the Armistice the Plattsburg Movement was continued in the fostering of a plan for voluntary camps, which was suggested to the War Department in a letter from the Military Training Camps Association on August 29, 1920. Secretary john W. Weeks promptly approved the idea and the War Department included an appropriate item in its annual budget. 'In this connection President Harding declared: I hope every young man, who can arrange it, will attend one of the Citizens, Military Training Camps con- ducted by the War Department in each of the nine Corps Areas. In this way he will increase his worth to thenation and obtain individual benefits of priceless value to him- self and to the community in which he lives. I hope to see established, during my ad- ministration, a comprehensive system of voluntary military training for at least IO0,000 men each year . The first camps were opened in 1921 with provisions for II,OOO young Page N in: . . . - - -1.1-1 1 11.1 - 111. 1 -1. . .1 E M I C 1.1. . , . . . . . . . 1 -1.1. . . 1 .1.111-1.v.1.1.v.1.1

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