Alexander Hamilton Vocational High School - Technician Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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TEACHERS MISS' FREEMAN A MR. MOORE MR. MILLER

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MRS. SOROKEN MR. AUERBACH SENIOR MRS. PANZER

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UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING AGAINST I see no reason for military conscription. After all, wars in the future will not he fought by infantry men, or men with anti-aircraft guns, or men in tanks. They will be fought by trained men who push buttons. Atomic bombs or bombs containing deadly germs, will he launched from hidden sites by rockets thousands of miles from the target and he guided Ioy radar. If some of our new discoveries are deveI0ped even our pilots will not soar into Uthe great blue yonder, but will direct their ships with both feet planted solidly on the ground! Then what kind of army do we need for the wars of the future? Vvhat kind of training shall we give in one year? I do not think that the advocates of compulsory military training know the answer . . . or if they do, it really has been a military secret, There is no proof that a large standing army will he needed in the face of new scientific discoveries. As long as our science leads the world we need a small corps, or better yet, a large corps of trained scientists. The indiscriminate drafting of everyone for a year of some kind of train- ing will not serve the purposes claimed for it. If our science falls behind, then we shall he lost. Let us resolve to spend that money and effort in training all our citizens so that we may find those talents we need, and thus enrich our scientific knowledge. Qur methods of warfare will change so rapidly that a trainee called hack tive years later will have to retrained. Not only will he he un- acquainted with the new machines and methods, but he will again have grown soft, and used to civilian life. In Vvorld Vvar Il when our newer tanks started rolling off the assembly line, the army had to take many of its veteran tank drivers out of active duty and teach them to drive all over again. Those who favor compulsory military training speak as if we had lost the war! From Pearl Harbor to D Day, we raised the Ioest equipped and best-trained army in the world. There is no proof that it would have been done better if there had been a year of military training in force. Modern war requires men highly trained in the methods of pro- duction and in the knowledge of modern science and not a mass of men, half-baked gun-toters. BERNARD SCHLESINGER 10