New Blood

Already busy weeding out its incompetent officers, the U.S. Army last week took the first step toward improving its officers corps: from ten big Army posts it got 1,900 brand-new lieutenants, guaranteed good quality and strictly fresh.

The new crop of youngsters had something that the commissioned body of the Army, selected by varying standards over the past 20-odd years, has not: uniform training. The first graduates of the Officer Candidate Schools (and the rest of the 10,000 who will finish their training by next summer) had the pick of the Army's young brains to whip them into shape. For 13 weeks they had turned out with the sun, had been taught in field and classroom until the sun was down, had often sat up until 11 o'clock at night poring over the texts on which they were examined. It was a tough course. The haphazard, the uninterested and the stupid (about 10%) fell by the wayside.

Typical was a group of 166 weather-beaten infantrymen turned out from Fort Benning, Ga.: some drafted men, some regulars, a few National Guardsmen. Many of them were college graduates, most had college training. All had shown qualities of leadership. Leadership was the quality the Army sought most in its new officers. All had had at least six months' training as enlisted soldiers.

Their training in the school imparted, in big doses, what many civilians think the Army lacks: snap. They were drilled in the spit-&-polish tradition that is the hallmark of all good outfits. They got demerits for not placing their shoes properly under their beds, for sloppy appearance, for languid carriage. More important, they got an intensive course in weapons, from the Garand rifle to the machine gun and the mortar. They took turns commanding their own companies.

Between times they were instructed in the niceties of Army social life: whom to call upon at a new post, table manners, how to act at receptions (several candidates, with aprons over their slacks, played the part of hostesses). At the end, 166 of an original 204 survived.

From other posts the Army got tankers, artillerymen, engineers, cavalrymen, ordnancemen. Signal Corps officers, medical administrative men. And other fresh blood is pouring into the Army. From U.S. colleges this summer have come 8,000 graduates, with four years' R.O.T.C. training behind them--not finished officers but good officer material.

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