Opportunity Whirs

With the possibility of a second national registration and a lowered draft age, more and more American youths are confronted with the reality of the draft. To many who enjoyed playing with cannons and tanks when an open stretch of carpet was a Hungarian plain, a tin helmet will be the realization of a childhood dream, Many others, however, will find ground training dull, uninteresting, and not even valuable as a new experience. For these, the opportunity to join the Army Flying Corps is a challenge to courage and a possibility worth serious consideration.

This opportunity should be especially attractive to college undergraduates. Their education makes them eligible to receive a training that is both vital to national defense and practical for the individual. If the training one receives is not harnessed for war, he is qualified for any one of numerous positions within the broad field of aviation. Should his services be needed in a U. S. participation, the readjustment to civil life after the war is over would be far less violent. The ex-pilot would be qualified for fairly well-paying positions in technical industry, but the draftee, having learned no practical knowledge useful for peacetime objectives, would find himself an unemployed misfit.

The plan also offers immediate and tangible advantages to the cadet. Instead of the thirty dollars one earns as a draftee, an air corps man is paid seventy-five dollars a month and an extra dollar a day for rations.

some may see the new drive to get more undergraduates to join the air corps as a diplomatic effort to decrease the amount of daring American blood that now filters into Canada. Actually, however, besides being a scheme to enroll these men in home defense, it is a rare opportunity for young men whose mental ages are above the ten year old minimum set by the army.