US Army Infantry School - Doughboy Yearbook (Fort Benning, GA)

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THE INFANTRY OT in one battle nor in one campaign, not in one war nor even in one century. did the Infantry win the crown of the Queen of Battles. lfnthroned twenty-live hundred years ago, the lnfan- try's royal place through the succeeding ages has become more surely fixed until with the close of the Nvorld Xvar there is none successfully to dispute the preference. Only by blood and sweat, privation and hard- ship, only by perseverance and hardihood, by sheer heart and soul has its position been won. Too businesslilce to be romantic, too bloody to be attractive to the nobility, it has not always received its mead of written praise. But down through history when kingdoms were made or fell, when civiliaations rose or were submerged the lnfantry has been at the heart of the contest. The lnfantry stands not alone nor to it belongs the sole credit. There has always been glory enough for all. The human body needs other organs than the heart and so the Infantry needs the other arms to com- plete the perfect whole. The lnfantry owes its place to the fact that it is the People. The Infantryman is the lighting machine with a soul. He is an instrument of war created by God and no man-made machine may equal or excel him. YVhen a people have been strong, sturdy, clean and imbued with love of country its infantry has shown like qualities. But when ease, luxury, licen- tiousness and the mad' pursuit of money have rotted the heart of the body politic the Infantry has suffered likewise. The lnfantryman is not made in a day. Because he marches against the enemy by the aid of his own legs, to grapple with the enemy with his own hands, because of the iron discipline he must acquire, because of the versatility which must be his, because his very individuality which is his strength when trained may be his undoing when untrained, he may only attain the condition of a good Tnfantryman after long, unremitting, arduous and thorough training. There is a peculiar impression of irresistible power given by great bodies of marching men. There is no man with soul so sodden that he does not thrill at the steady beat of the Infantry march nor feel the tre- mendous latent power that lies within. The dash of cavalry, the rumble of the guns may quicken him to greater surface enthusiasm, but they do not leave him with that persistent impression of power. It is the soul of

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the Infantry that he feels. Only the rush, continuous, mighty, eternal of the waters over Niagara may' be likened to it. The prowess of the Infantry and its influence on man and his affairs stand out dramatically in the pages of history. It was ten thousand Greek Infantrymen who, faced by ten times their number smashed the Persian hosts at lVIarathon twenty-five hundred years ago and assured tous Greek civilization With its gifts of art and letters. And here was first definitely established the supremacy of the men of the VVest over those of the East-a supremacy maintained even to this day. It was the Infantryman who made good Sparta's boast that men, not walls, were her protection. It was the Infantryman who gave to the world at Thermopylae that unparalleled example of soldierly devotion. It was the Infantryman about whom Alexander builded the army that hewed for him his great empire out of the East and marched with him from the Aegean Sea to the heights of the Himalayas. It was the Infantryman who carried the Roman law and govern- mental system over the world and who held Rome's far-Hung frontiers against every assault so long as Rome herself deserved such devotion. It was the English archer who brought down the knight from his blundering horse and drove in the thin edge of the wedge that finally broke the back of the feudal system with its privileges for the few and its oppres- sion of the many. The Dark Ages cast their shadow over the Infantry. For the warrior who felt the need of an armored skin so weighty as to require the services of other legs than his own and who spent his days philandering about the country slaying seven-headed, fire-eating dragons, or in beating a tattoo on the tin back of his opponent for the smiles of some fair maiden, the bloody, businesslike and unbefurbelowed infantry was no attractive service. There was a gory crudeness about infantry work which must have proved most distasteful to the scions of the leading families of that day. And let it not be forgotten that these were. the men with the money and the honors to acquire the services of the Troubadours and Chroniclers who then, even as now, sang their sweetest and scribbled their mightiest where the flesh pots lay. It Was the breekless Infantryman who did NOT run at the thunder of the guns at Valmy, and who gave Democracy its chance in the face of all the privilege of Europe.