Military Hygiene for Officers of the Line
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SERVICE The whole military fabric rests upon the physical character of those who compose it, for neither enthusiasm nor intelligence may be substituted for vigor of body and . mobility of limb. Nevertheless, along with physical fitness the recruit should possess a sufficiently alert mind for the development of the individual self-reliance and dash which are replacing the older confidence of solid ranks and the momentum of armed masses. No precise measure of intelligence can be formulated beyond the official standard of literacy and the required testimonials of character, but care must be taken to exclude men who appear incapable of appreciating the improved weapons and of discharging the responsible duties of the modern soldier. To accept men of known bad character works , . ,
...Character injury to the service by admitting those sure to make trouble; and the occasional effort of civil authorities to purge their communities of undesirable characters by presenting enlistment as an alternative to imprisonment, is an insult to be resented in behalf of the rank and file and an offer to be rejected however stalwart the applicant. That is, the material must be selected; for not every chance applicant is fit for enlistment, and accepted recruits must be capable of becoming qualified for the sustained effort which war more and more insistently demands. The popular assumption that every full-grown man who supports himself by severe manual labor may, on strength that account, become an efficient soldier, is not alone in- true. Although he may be accustomed to vigorous OTfficiwrt work, the applicant's joints may not be flexible, his senses may not be keen, and sometimes his internal organs may notbe sound. A man who accomplishes a great deal of lab...
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