Page:The history and achievements of the Fort Sheridan officers' training camps.djvu/335

 THE SECOND OFFICERS' TRAINING CAMP

��broad experiences were suddenly called upon to start in and master the A. B. C. of military tactics — the school of the soldier, the school of the squad, the school of the company, or, in other words, the 1. D. R.

Candidate, the executive head of one of the great industries

of the country, sat on the side of his bunk at the close of one of these early

days. He w^as not physically tired. He was too well-trained for that but he

w^as evidently all in. What had happened? Well, the A. B. C.'s of military training was too much for the mind that knew^ how^ to handle big affairs with- out strain.

No one w^ill know^ how^ conscientiously these men tried to memorize every w^ord, every detail of those infantry regulations, repeating them by day and

by night perfecting each page as though life itself depended upon it. They

made their brains sweat. They opened up the old avenues of memory. Their wills forced the old brain to go back and to master the methods of youth. They learned what they should have learned as boys as a part of their citizen- ship, the ability not merely to protect themselves but to protect their country as leaders.

No man of forty who went through those early days will ever forget how impossible it seemed to ever master the essentials of military training upon

���INSTRUCTORS, SECOND CAMP

Front Row (left to right) Capt. L. E. Cummings, Capt. L. H. Cook, Capt. Max Murdock,

Capt. W. H. Young. Back Row (left to right) Capt. Cecil M. Harris, Maj. Philip Fox, Capt. G. G. Griggs.

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