LIFE IN THE ARMY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24250, 16 April 1942, Page 4

LIFE IN THE ARMY

SERVICE AS SYSTEM * PRIVATE'S REFLECTIONS (In this concluding article the writer, a city man serving as a private soldier since the outbreak of the war with Japan, gives a newcomer's impressions of the Army as a system.)

BT VOLUNTEER 111. Leaving the question of the state of the camps and the comfort of the men, how does the Army, as an organisation, strike the city man who joins the ranks as a private soldier? Let me give my own "worm's eye view" of it. The first impression', undoubtedly, which the newcoraer receives is that of the overwhelming importance of the institution and the complete unimportance of the individual • The first lesson is to conform. This, of course, is very necessary to some extent. Where large numbers of men are to work together night and day their efficiency as a fighting force no less than their mutual comfort must depend largely on the effacement of self. Men must be trained, too, to obey orders instantly without stopping to question or discuss, for upon instantaneous action life and death may depend. The Soldier as a Robot This is not to say, however, that the soldier should be treated as a Robot, without ability to understand or desire to be informed. Too often, however, this is what happens. Too frequently plans are made by headquarters, worked out in detail by officers, explained to •N.C.O.'s arid then left to be carried out by men who have not been told anything about what they are supposed to be doing, This is no exaggeration. Here is an actual example. In one operational camp in which I was recently, an alarm called out all the available men during the night.' They fell in with all equipment and loaded rifles and moved off silently into the darkness. After a considerable walk the men found themselves scattered along a ridge, where they waited in the dark for some time: then a sergeant came along and inarched them home. The point is that none of the men in the ranks knew, either then or afterward, whether the operation was a "real scare'' or merely » practice; no one knew what he was supposed to be looking for (if anything) ©r even which way he ought to be facing. This is by no means a unique experience. Shovel and Wheelbarrow The business man arriving in the army is, of course, struck at once with the immense amount of digging which is still done by hand. In all the camps I have been in, all the excavation was done by men with picks and shovels (often very old shovels and too few of them) and wheelbarrows. Apparently the mechanised methods of the Public Works Department do not apply to the Army. Admittedly, the men have to become fit and have to learn how to dig; but to put scores of city-trained men day after day digging out by hand large-scale excavations, which a bulldozer would finish off in a few hours, an unbusinesslike waste of manpower. Too many men seem to have been called up only to use whole months, not in training (for in our camps there has been practically none so far), but in navvying. Navvying done, too, it will be noticed, very largely by men who have never done such work before. A frequent cause of wasted time is indecision and altered plans. Men too frequently spend half a week digging trenches, only to find that the other half of the week they have to be filled in and dug somewhere else. Wire is put up on Monday to be pulled down on Tuesday and re-erected on Wednesday. This, too, is felt to be especially regrettable when "every man is needed." Orders are too often given one day to be cancelled the next. Even before entering camp men find that they receive letters "to go in," and then a day or two later a wire arrives cancelling the order. If .nominations were called among the men for the most eminent example of this bureaucratic disorder, the vote would possibly go to the Army Pay Office at Auckland, as it appears to the unfortunates who have to wait for hours in,its queues. / A Few Words of Praise These, however, are some of the defects of the system as it appears at first blush to the business man. There is much, on the other hand, to praise. The good fellowship existing between officers and men, in the unit to which I was fortunate enough to belong, was more than heartening—it was inspiring. The complete unselfishness and helpfulness of soldiers and N.C.O.'s to each other was equally exhilarating. The resourcefulness and intelligence of the ranks in practical matters is first-rate; it only needs to be appreciated more by those Sn command. The singleness of purpose, the feeling of submerging self in an ideal of service—all those are a wonderful experience for the city man called to the Army; but the Army (as I hope I have shown) is still capable of some improvement.