In operation it was like Mark Twain’s weather — everyone talked about it but no one did anything.
[...]
A lot of overseas men were lost—we were not civilized enough, or polite enough to second lieutenants, or something.
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I am still pleased about the whole thing — the guys who told me I was nuts for not making the most of the great opportunity are not only still in the army; most of them are still overseas, where they did not want to go! In fact, one of them went over the month I came back to be discharged.
[...]
Their higher-ups were keeping up a desperate pretense that there was not really a war on, that after all, the main thing was really to cultivate the state of mind that the commissioned man is really a better man than the enlisted one; and above all, the “army way” was the reason for existence, not the war, that there is plenty of time, etc.
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This went over with the ROTC kids and some of the domestic drill corporals, but did not sit too well with the sergeants back from the shops and trucks of the overseas theatres. We knew just how lousy and useless most of the officers turned out under that system were.
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A loud, clear voice was 70% of the qualifications for an officer, the drill field counting that much in total grades.
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The physical training course was very fine and the officer in charge was an expert. He could both do it and teach it. He was rough and he made us like it, producing more results in a shorter time than I believed possible. His exercises were scientific and beneficial not just tiring motions. Naturally they were not G.I. but his own adaptation of gymnastics adapted to mass ground performance.
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A little training in firearms was given and a 200-yard qualification course was fired with some very beat-up M1 rifles at the Aberdeen range. We just went out, picked up the guns, then fired the course. My particular rifle would group about 12″ or 14″ at 200 yards, shooting prone with sling, on the A target. I managed to make expert without difficulty, but was sad about the low score — I dropped about 20 points and anyone who knows how to point a rifle should not lose over five. It was impossible to call a shot with the inaccurate rifles.
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(I had concluded that while I hated the army, I didn’t mind the war so much as long as I was not being shot at).
“The physical training course was very fine and the officer in charge was an expert. He could both do it and teach it. He was rough and he made us like it, producing more results in a shorter time than I believed possible”
Various techniques exist to maximize performance during physical training tests. Such as on the horizontal ladder [monkey bars] or the vertical wall. A good instructor teaching some simple basics can improve a score of a troop rather easily.