WHAT PROSPECTS?

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 60, 8 September 1945, Page 8

WHAT PROSPECTS?

ARMY CAREERS

FUTURE COMMITMENTS

Some concern has been expressed that, through lack of any concrete information on the composition and size of the future Army forces of this country, and through the absence of any indications of the prospects of aspirants for an Army career, many eminently suitable men who are anxious for such a career are being discouraged and allowed to slip back to civilian life, from which they will never be reclaimed.

"We must have an efficient nucleus of Staff Corps and Permanent Staff officers and n.c.o.'s," an officer of field rank who was recently demobilised stated today. "The opportunity presents itself now of augmenting the Staff Corps and Permanent Staff by recruiting experienced soldiers from this war—young soldiers, both officers and rank and file. The time to seize these people is when they arrive in the country, or even before they arrive in the country, and offer them prospects that they can compare with the opportunities they are likely to achieve in civil life. TAKEN UP OTHER CAREERS. "Already a -number of young men, who have considered making the Army their career have, through failure to offer them anything firm; taken up other careers. There is a complete absence of information on the subject. We can't afford to lose these men. It is vital at this stage that we get the maximum number of experienced soldiers in the regular forces." Preparedness for war, and not disarmament, was the means of maintaining peace, he said. The training of territorials was really the basic job of the Army in peacetime. There were weaknesses in the systems of both voluntary and compulsory territorial training before the war, and it was considered that if young men were in future given a period of either six or twelve months in the Forces it would confer something on them besides providing for defence requirements. Such a system would give them better discipline, quite apart from the military aspect. Whatever was decided, however, it would be necessary to have a substantial and efficient permanent force to guide the training, he concluded. COMMITMENTS NOT KNOWN. New Zealand's commitments under her obligations to the United Nations are not yet known, and until they are I decided the future composition of her Army cannot be finally laid down. It is apparent, however, that whether or not a force is to be kept for immediate use in an emergency a constant flow of officers and n.c.o.s will be required in order that forces can be raised and trained in a reasonable period when the necessity arises. While the raising and training of such forces might be encompassed in a matter of months, this could be done only if the leaders were available at the time. One big hurdle to be overcome in the development of the post-war Army is the general unattractiveness of peacetime Army life and the comparative lack of opportunity for advancement. The very smallness of New Zealand's Army has hitherto restricted the opportunities for promotion of even the most keen and efficient members of the Force, but notwithstanding this the love of the service has in mostj cases outweighed for its members the many disadvantages under which they suffer. It is realised, of course, that many of the handicaps under which regular soldiers suffer are part and parcel of their job and cannot be altered without impairing efficiency. TOLERANCE WANTED. But what the men in the Army want most of all is tolerance and understanding on the part of the community. Before the war there, was, at times, a feeling of hostility towards Army men, and some have candidly admitted that they wore their uniforms in public only when compelled to do so. To popularise the Army it is essential that its members should command the respect of the public, and should have a standing in the community commensurate with the performance of the job they have to do—that of training and instructing the young men of the community so that if war comes again they will be able to play their part efficiently and speedily, and so that their very presence—and the presence of tens of thousands of similar men throughout the Empire—may act as a deterrent to any future wouldbe warmonger.