Handy Guide for the Tremulous: What to Do If They Draft You

The story of J. Frothingham Seltzer is a dread one in circles both military and civilian.

Seltzer spent the better half of his senior year calculating how to stay out of the Army. Toward late March he was leaning toward the Graduate School of Dental Health but, when he realized that this was temporary respite at best, he decided to join either the Navigation Cadets or the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Poor Seltzer! His myopic left eye kept him from being a navigator, and he never could find the office of the Geodetic Survey, and within a month the Army drafted him. Unwise, unprepared, he was told that his best aptitude was automobile mechanics and was assigned to bus tables at a cooks' school, where, because of an administrative error, he has spent the past 17 years.

On the chance that there are embryonic Seltzers in the College, the CRIMSON has asked some of its more knowledgeable graduates, now in the Army, to prepare this handy compendium on How to Keep Sane though Uniformed. For best results, glance at it only casually today but glue it to the insides of your overnight bag, and pursue it religiously on your way to induction.

First of all, stop worrying, for the Army isn't so bad after all. You'll be surprised at the intelligence of your barracks-mates, many of whom will be college graduates. After the first three weeks, which are rather distressing, there will be ample time for Service Club dances, which are no worse than Jolly Ups, or the well-stocked camp libraries, or other divertissements.

There are four way to join the Army; the most common, of course, is getting drafted. It's not a good idea to enlist; the enlistee is a member of the Regular Army rather than the Army of the United States, and the President can keep him in as long as he likes. Many soldiers who enlisted for two years have been kept for three; though that isn't being done this year, it may if the Korean War gets worse. Draftees cannot be kept for three years except by act of Congress.

Don't let the recruiters fool you: the Army is hard up for officers and you don't have to enlist to be one. If you don't like waiting around and want to go into the Army on a specific month, just ask your selective service board and they'll be glad to draft you earlier.

Perhaps the best method of all is to join the Organized Reserve Corps--like the 94th in Boston--and then apply for two years of active duty. You'll be able to bring with you the rank and the leave time that you got in the reserve, and people will treat you much nicer at the Reception Center. Otherwise those first five or ten days can be somewhat unpleasant.

During your first few days at the Reception Center, you'll be subjected to a battery of ten Army tests that play a big part in your future. Don't take them lightly; they'll be harder than you expect and you won't have time to finish most of them. The scoring system is fairly complicated and is different for each test; and the best advice is to work as fast as you can and still be accurate.

You will also have an interview--ten minutes perhaps, or fifteen--with a man from Classification and Assignment. This is your most important 10 minutes in the Army, for the C&A man will ask what you did as a civilian, and what he writes about you on Form 20 will determine what you do and where you go for the rest of your life in the service.

The private or corporal at C&A sometimes makes mistakes, like anybody, but he feels rather happy if he can place you where you want to go. At your first interview he will be classifying you, not assigning you. So don't tell him where you want to be assigned; tell him your civilian experience that will help you get that assignment later. Incidentally, don't call him "sir."

The C&A man will tell you whether you passed the Officer Candidate Test, and he'll probably let you look over his shoulder to see your other marks. Ask him what your physical profile is. An "A" profile means you're in fine physical shape, and a "B" doesn't make much difference, especially if you got it because of sight or hearing. But a "C" profile will keep you out of combat. If you pull strings, it may also get you out of your basic training company and into some On-the-Job Training, which is much easier.

A lot of students will qualify for specialists in physics, chemistry, engineering, psychology, or a few other fields. To become a specialist (in Army Huge, Scientific and Professional Personnel) you need a bachelor's degree and occasionally some post-graduate employment: you also need high marks on two or three of the Army tests. Which is all the more reason to take them seriously.

If you qualify as a specialist, you will take eight weeks of basic training instead of sixteen, and then get sent to a lab or a hospital for a fairly pleasant life.

Otherwise you will take sixteen weeks of basic probably in infantry (Fort Dix, N.J. or Fort Jackson, S.C.), Armor (Fort Knox, Ky, or Fort Hood, Tex.), or Field Artillery (Fort Dix. N.J. or Fort Sill, Okla.). The choice is made by officers whom you will never see and on the basis of mere caprice, so there is no way of influencing your branch of service.

Once in basic, however, there are several interesting fields you may want to get into. The Army Security Agency, which sends and decodes messages, is quite popular; so is the Counter-Intelligence Corps, whose members wear civilian clothes half the time. The Army Language School is educational if rather intensive, and it's located in Monterey, California, a very nice place. Persons with law experience can sometimes get into the Judge Advocate's office. Two lesser-known fields are Public Information and Troop Information and Education; the Army runs an excellent school for these, the Armed Forces Information School, that almost no one knows about.

To get into any of these, you should go down to the Classification and Assignment office as soon as you can during basic. That may not be easy; first sergeants are loath to excuse 7anybody from training and all sorts of ruses may have to be employed. Here's one gambit: he'll ask you to say yes or no about going to Officer Candidates School; tell him you can't until you check with C&A about something else you're qualified for.

About being an officer. Almost every Harvard graduate will qualify, but do you want to? Officers must go through four more months or rugged training; they're in the Army for half a year longer or more; they are always being called back from the reserve. Their extra pay isn't as much as it sounds; officers are responsible for equipment that enlisted men lose, and must pay for it from their own pockets.

On top of that, enlisted men usually have more interesting jobs. It is the enlisted men who take Signal Corps pictures or write for Stars and Stripes or track down counter-intelligence cases; the lieutenants worry about administration and finance. Seventy percent of all officers now go into the infantry: after OCS they spend six months drilling trainees at a basic training camp and then go overseas to Europe or Korea. Only one percent are sent to the Chemical Corps or Transportation or another of the non-combat branches.

And in general: keep your mind open, for the Army isn't as bad as you think it is; don't believe anybody--even your company commander or the C&A man--unless he is emminently qualified to speak about what he is speaking about: and if you want a particular deal, fight like hell to got it