A SOLDIER’S STATURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1939, Page 9

A SOLDIER’S STATURE

ADVANTAGES OF SMALL MEN. Writing in the London “Daily Telegraph/ ofc February 25, a correspondent make the following plea for small men as soldiers:—if the proof of the military pudding is in the eating, what a brilliantly successful leader who recruited his own “fighting material” had to say about little men may be of interest. The late Lt.-Col. Driscoll, whose famous Driscoll Scouts were nearly all little men, said to me at Durban about the year 1905: “So long as they are physically fit, the smaller the better; they do not break the hacks of my horses; they are- economical to clothes and feed; (hey have more endurance; (hey do not offer such a, good target to the enemy:! I he;, can pass silently where the big man blunders: the average small man is more alert mentally and physically than the- average big man; ' as for pluck, if there, is anv difference the little man has it. It is deplorable (hat the authorities sacrifice so much valuable material to appearance. If they do not' want their .battalions to look ragged, they should establish battalions for small men. It is a cruel wrong to deny any man the right to defend his country when he is able and willing to do so.