Citizens Military Training Camp - Full Pack Yearbook (Fort Leavenworth, KS)

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-ZGDIULI' ,0TAC'K'99 as possible at all times. It is a good policy to occasionally volunteer to perform any needed services. Once in a while after your day's work is done if you will mention it to the company clerk, the atop sergeant or the company officers, they will find something that they need for you to do. You can tell them that you want to be of any help that you can be and that you also want to learn. If you have something that you do not thoroughly understand you will find them helpful in giving you individual instruction. For instance, the Manual of Arms is quite difficult. To learn to come to right shoulder arms from order arms, etc. snappily and in unison with the other members of the command requires considerable practice. Of course, in volunteering to do things and in asking for individual instruction do not overdo it. If you should continually be bothering them in that way they would get the notion that you had a selfish motive in it. just once in a while when you are not busy and you see that your superior officer is not busy, if you will talk to him along the lines I have indicated it will be helpful. I know that you are going to get along splendidly and that this experience will be a wonderful thing for you. I have only pointed out the above matters in order to try to About the CMTC When a little handful of men who valued their health and felt very strongly for pre- paredness against possible war in the United States got together and started the first Citizens' Military Training Camp at Plattsburg, they built far better than they realized. These men conducted this camp from purely patriotic motives, paying their own expenses for the most part and getting the rudiments of military training. Building up their health, and meeting their fellowmen on common ground, they were able a few years later, when the World War-came, to place at the disposal of their government thousands of men who had been trained at Plattsburg and other camps as suitable officer material for the new army that was to be formed. ' After it became a certainty that the United States was to participate in the World War, the Military Training Camps Association, which was the outgrowth of the Platts- burg Movement, placed at the disposal of the Secretary of War a well worked out plan for the training of officers. This was eventually adopted, and the Oflicers' Training Camps of the war came into being. The war was won. The army created was disbanded, and we are now back to civil pursuits and life, but there still remains the same need for military preparedness and training of young men of the country as existed in the old Plattsburg days. Not the train- ing for war, but the training for peace. Especially is such training needed as looks after the health of the young man and gives him such lectures on constitutional government and constitutional authority as will become valuable in making a better citizen of him. Especial attention is given to the development of the young man from all angles in the present Citizens' Military Training Movement, and it is the hope of the men behind it that they will be able to develop in this movement men of leadership, men of outstanding ability, and men who have the capacity for becoming the new officers of the Reserve Army of the United States. The training itself brings out the good traits of the young man. The regular hours for sleeping and eating, for work and for play are especially valuable. Military courtesy and etiquette fit him for the nicer things of life. Altogether, it is one of the best things for the rising generationithat has ever been attempted by the United States government. be of some help to you. C. S. WALKER, Civilian Aide to Sec'y of War. Seventh Corps Area. Page One Hundred Three

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-24-'NIU LLQ AFICKOQQ H isiory of F ort Leavenworth As the results of the efforts of Senator Benton of Missouri, the United States decided to open a trade route to the Southwest. To protect this trade the government was induced to establish a military post at some point along the western boundary of Missouri. Colonel Leavenworth, 3rd U. S. Infantry, who was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., was assigned to the duty of selecting a suitable site for this post. Under orders of March 7, 1827, he proceeded up the Missouri River and selected the spot which now bears his name. , The posts relation to this new trade, its selection as the capital of the new territory, its position in the Civil War, and the fact that the General Service School is now conducted here, have given it a commanding position as a military post second to none in the country: In 1846 the army of the west for operation against lVIexico was organized at Fort Leavenworth under General S. W. Kearney. The exodus of the lVIormons to Utah in 1847 and the excitement of the Gold Rush of ,4Q, gave Fort Leaven- worth an importance which exceeded the dreams of the founder. In 1854 the Territory of Kansas was organized and the post was designated as the temporary capital. Three years later Colonel A. S. Johnston proceeded to Utah with an expedition which was organized here for the purpose of punishing the lVIormons who had refused to obey the laws of the United States. In January, 1858, eight companies of the Sixth Infantry assembled here for a march to the Paciic Coast. They left here in March and arrived at a point within twenty miles of San Francisco in November of the same year. During the Civil War this was one of the most important posts of the west, and after the war it was made headquarters for the country's largest Geographical Military Department. In 1881 the Infantry and Cavalry Schools were established here. What was further done in the advance- ment of military science at this post is known to all and needs no recounting. In 1923 the Citizen Military Training Camp was held here and all the cadets say, I-Iats off to the Leaven- worth of the past, and to the still more wonderful Leavenworth of the present. FT. LEAVENWORTH FROM THE AIR Page One Hundred Five