MARRIED MEN IN TERRITORIALS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 45, 17 November 1941, Page 6

MARRIED MEN IN TERRITORIALS

Extra Training Complaint

LIKELIHOOD OF BEING BALLOTED SOON

Married men who joined the Territorial Force voluntarily on the understanding that, according to the time they joined up, they would have to do three months’ initial training and fortnightly and weekend parades, or the two last-mentioned types of service only, will now have to do the recentlyannounced two months’ additional training next year at a time only a few months distant from their being required to enter the Expeditionary Force. This, applies to married men with no children or one. Before volunteering ceased many married men joined the Territorial Force when the obligation was the initial three months’ training and regular parades thereafter. There was no mention then of further intensive training over a period. Later, after con scription began, the ranks of the territorials were opened to married volunteers with one to three children. I' or a time it was stated that the obligation on such men would be the regular fortnightly and intermittent weekend parades. ‘ This was subsequently amended to require the initial three months’ training, but before this a number had joined up. Married men doing the three months’ training had to keep their homes going on soldiers’ pay while they were away. Unlike men called up for overseas, they could not make the final rearrangement of their home affairs that is usually called for when the term of a man’s absence is indefinite; these men had to continue their normal domestic arrangements. Some of those who joined up when the ranks were opened to them during conscription only recently completed their three months’ training. In common with the initial married volunteers they find they will have to do another two months, in some cases only a few months after they have done the first period. In most cases it will amount to five months in camp, at the same time keeping their normal domestic arrangements going on army pay. Men who have brought this position to notice complain that they will be training for two months away from their homes at some time between January and April, when they are likely to be balloted for overseas service early next year and called up shortly after they have finished the extra two months of collective training. They consider that.the fit married territorials, eligible for overseas, and liable to be called up in the first half of next year or shortly after, should be released from their territorial obligations. All single men eligible for overseas had been.

Such a step would give them relief from the financial strain of maintaining their home on army pay for an additional two months of the year, bearing in mind the probability of their being in an Expeditionary Force camp the same year and, possibly, even overseas. It would also give them this extra time with their families.