Word: line
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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...this spirit of wanting to get in to Government service, may easily be come a kind of hysteria. It is hard to withstand the inclination to follow the line of least resistance. It will take real moral heroism for many men to hold steadily to their present duties. They owe it, however, to themselves, their parents, their friends and their country...
Such spontaneous and universal comprehension of a national need is praise-worthy. But unfortunately modern armies are not composed of simple elements. They are vastly complex, and the abilities which go to make them must be vastly complex. We need officers of the battle-line; we need cultivation of our productive soil. But we need in addition, engineers and artillery men, manufacturers, business men, doctors. If we turn all our technical school men into infantry officers, we shall have no bridges to cross, for none will be built. If we turn all our medical students into farmers, the armies...
...lives through fever, contagious diseases, and gangrene. The knowledge given to the world by Pasteur and his followers has enabled the medical corps of all the warring armies to restore in the shortest time and with the least loss of effectives wounded or otherwise disabled men to the fighting line. On the efficiency of its medical staff a modern army depends no less than on the battering power of its great guns...
...possible that we may have a surplus of doctors. It is possible that we may have a dearth. Those who learn are no less serving than those who drill. In a year's time a graduated doctor may be worth more to his nation than three first-line officers, and be the cause of saving more lives than fifty times his number of the enemy can destroy...
...army is a constant puzzle to most laymen and to many prospective military men. This confusion is due to at least two causes. The chief cause is doubtless the fact that though there has long been a quartermaster corps which is a staff organization without direct connection with the line, a large number of line officers have been detailed as quartermasters. Another cause is probably the recent consolidation of three staff organizations into one, now called the quartermaster corps; viz, the subsistence, the pay, and the quartermaster departments...