THE END OF THE ARMY BUGLER?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 27

THE END OF THE ARMY BUGLER?

.0' how I hate to (jet up in. tne morning! O, how I long to remain In bedl For the hardest blow of all Is to hear the buglo call — You got to get up, you got to get up, You got to get up this morning.' Some day I'm going to murder the bugler; Some day they're going to find him dead. I'll amputate his reveille And step upon It heavily

And spend; the rest of ray life In bed.

Old soldiers who have sung this war-time ditty with a fervent wish to put its rhymes into execution will rejoice to learn the War Department is considering putting the bugler to a legal death, says the ''Chicago Tribune." ■•■-■■

In these days of streamlining, which began with autds and trains and now has reached army divisions, there is agitation in the army command for doing away with sounding brass. To practical officers, the bugler is nothing but a survivor of the brave days of fuss and feathers, let alone an earlymorning headache.

whose efforts may sound as though he had a pig concealed in his instrument and was producing his notes by biting on its tail.

The Air Corps has pointed the way to the bugler's grave. At Mitchell field the bugler has been canned into records and an efficient sound system puts the post through various phases of army life.

This, according to enemies of the bugler, has tended to increase morale. A soldier finds his pack and gun galling when he sees before him a fellow stepping briskly along toting nothing but a piece of the plumber's art.

The recordings are a great musical improvement over the bugler because they are made by a cornet. Any music lover knows that there is a vast difference in the mellow notes of a cornet and the braying of a bugle, particularly when they recall the tendency of army buglers to slur notes on the flat side. '

By doing away with the blowers into twisted brass, each company would gain two men who, instead of making faces into polished brass at sunrise, could carry a rifle or a few grenades. To a soldier a rifle or grenade carrier is a more comforting companion in a tight place than a musician,

As great an improvement as the canned bugler is, the army high command would do away with the entire art. They argue that officers can be awakened by alarm clocks and men by sirens and that formations and army life can be regulated entirely by bells, whistles, and gongs.