R. O. T. C. TAKES PLACE OF TRAINING CAMPS

In the two years that the R. O. T. C. has been in operation since the armistice, a marked progress has been made towards its physical organization and a compilation of comprehensive and practical regulations governing its operation.

The number of Officers in the Reserve Corps organization of the country, being added to annually by the graduates from College Units, has grown so large, that far reaching regulations for preparedness have now been compiled covering the 'Officers' Reserve Corps. There are at the present time approximately 90,000 students in junior and senior units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The junior units graduate men into the senior units, and the senior units eventually graduate men into the Reserve Corps. With the present strength of senior units, and their marked increase in enrollment, each one will begin to graduate from 50 to 300 Reserve Corps officers each year. This will mean that in the event of any future emergency, unless it should come surprisingly soon, there will be no necessity for training camps as in the past war. For a clear example we might take as a case that of the Field Artillery Units. There are at the present time twenty Field Artillery Units. Within the next three to five years present conditions indicate that there will be an average of one hundred officers graduated from each Field Artillery Unit, which will make annually two thousand officers. In ten years there would accumulate some twenty thousand young officers, which was the number of officers the Field Artillery had in the past war.

Promotion for Junior Officers

To prevent an accumulation of officers in the junior grade, regulations covering the Reserve Corps provide for promotion of such officers.

Officers to be eligible for promotion must have held one grade for at least three years, and they will come before examining boards, that will be conveniently located, where they will be examined for general, physical, moral and professional fitness. In computing these required three years in any grade, credit will be given for service since November 11, 1918, with double credit for active service that was rendered during hostilities from April 6, 1917, to the armistice. The subjects on which he will be examined to determine his professional fitness will cover those subjects of a military character relating to the grade to which he aspires.

The regulations as they exist will make the organization of Reserve Officers a broader one than that of the Regular Army. The Corps, as it is today, includes every section of the Regular Army and in addition five other sections which are essential to all organizations and which are, namely:

General service.

Sanitary.

Intelligence.

Police.

Staff.

With the present regulations the Reserve Officers' Training Corps is the only feeder to the Officers' Reserve Corps with one exception and that is for the man who saw service during the war.