ARMED FORCES: It Was Murder

For the National Guard, historically more powerful than the Regular Army in political battles, the hour had come for counterattack. Reviewing an Army directive requiring six months' active field training for new Guardsmen after April 1, Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson labeled Guard Korean war recruiting "a draft-dodging business" (TIME, Feb. 11), and Chief of Staff Maxwell D. Taylor lamented the inadequacy of the Guard's preparedness.

To counter them, before a House Armed Services subcommittee last week came Major General (ret.) Ellard A. Walsh. 69. National Guard Association president, and twelve Guard generals. Acceding to the Army directive on most points, Minnesota's Walsh demanded one privilege: eleven weeks' training for the 17-18½-year-olds from whom the Guard draws "the bulk of our enlistees." If it is forced to surrender that final prerogative, warned Walsh, the National Guard will ''have had the kiss of death placed upon us."

Next day from General Walsh's brassbound ranks emerged two dissenters. The 49th (California) Division's retired artillery commander, Major General John W. Guerard, 50, a peacetime lawyer and XXIV Corps South Pacific veteran, upheld the Army viewpoint. He observed that "the day has gone when any lunkhead could have a rifle shoved in his hands and some officer would march out in front and wave a saber and say 'Charge!' "

More damaging to the Guard's official stand was the 49th's commander. Major General Roy A. Green, 59, a dentist on the outside, who stood before the subcommittee while he blasted eleven weeks' training as "absolutely inadequate." In his own division, said Green, he accepts enlistments only if the enlistees agree to sign up for six months' training—and "we are gaining strength; we are gaining proficiency." One reason for his insistence on adequate training: as a regimental commander on Okinawa in 1945, he had taken on replacements with only six to eight weeks' training. "I lost 2,200 men in my regiment alone . . . Those men died because they were not trained. It was murder."

To soothe both sides, the subcommittee suggested that its chairman, Louisiana's Overton Brooks, approach Pentagon and National Guard with a compromise: institute until June 30, 1958 the eleven-week training plan for 17-18½-year-olds, with a bonus for six-month volunteers, i.e., instead of spending the remainder of their eight-year military obligation in the Guard, they could shift after three years to the Standby Reserve. Largely amenable to the compromise. Guard officers were nevertheless rankled by the Army's permitting Generals Guerard and Green to testify. Snapped Walsh: "The Army is guilty of playing dirty pool. We would never demean ourselves by asking an Army regular officer to testify for our side."