U.S. At War: Telling the Generals

As Congress considered the bill to extend the draft for another year, Allied victories kept piling up. So did pressure in Congress to keep 18-year-olds from being sent into combat without a Congress-prescribed period of training.

President Truman had told Congressional leaders he was against such a restriction. More emphatically, General Marshall wrote to the Senate Military Affairs Committee, spoke of the possibility of "disaster," said "no restrictions should be placed by law on the time when soldiers may enter combat."

Last week, after listening to George Marshall's soldierly warning, the Senate threw out a proposal to require a year's pre-combat training for men under 20. It also threw out an attempt to halt the draft of men over 31. But then, turning its back on the President and the Chief of Staff, it adopted an amendment barring the use of 18-year-olds in combat unless they have had at least six months' training. The vote: 50 to 25.

Three days later Alabama's Representative John J. Sparkman rose in the House, announced the junction of U.S. and Russian troops in Germany. The House applauded. Then, without a record vote, it unanimously approved what the Senate had done, sent the draft act and its restriction to the White House.