 This is an L-23, a light army aircraft. The army has many such aircraft, but the man at the controls of this particular flight makes it something special. He is the highest-ranking active army pilot, the only four-star general in the army, who is qualified to handle both helicopters and fixed wing craft. His name is Herbert B. Powell, and he commands an organization which is, among other things, the largest peacetime training establishment in American military history. That organization is U.S. Conarch, the United States Continental Army Command, with headquarters here at Fort Monroe, Virginia. And in a few moments, General Powell himself will be your host for today's story of your army in action, Men in Training, for which his command is responsible. Later we will be moving around the country to see something of the scope and importance of this continent-spanning training responsibility. Right now, here is General Powell. Welcome to Fort Monroe. It's a command which reaches into every one of the 48 continental United States. And if you have a father, brother, friend, or a sister serving today in the army, the Army Reserve, the Army National Guard, or in an ROTC unit anywhere from Maine to California, you and I have a mutual interest. The well-being and the military proficiency. The skill of every member of the army is a matter of direct concern to us here. You're about to take a brief look around the post, I understand. I'll see you again at my office. Since time is limited, I'll just say again, welcome. The mission of Conark, its objective, its reason for being is simply stated. It is readiness, complete and constant. At this headquarters, men of your army are at work every day to ensure the success of that mission, the achievement of that objective. It is a many-fold responsibility. For example, Conark provides the largest combat-ready command in the United States Army, our strike, which is the Army component of the strike command, two full-cores, about 312,000 uniformed men, and everything they need to do their jobs. Conark is, for the first time, the single command which is responsible for virtually all army training, basic, advanced, and specialized. It is also the only command headquarters of the Army Reserve and supervises all Army National Guard and ROTC training. Top-level responsibility for all of this and more rests with the people who make up this headquarters, Conark. Ultimate responsibility, of course, rests with the commanding general. Right. I think that will take care of it. See that it gets out by wire to the command's concern. I'll see to it, sir. I hope you enjoyed your brief look around Fort Monroe. I wish we had more time for a fuller inspection, but there's a great deal for you to see around the country. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. Military installations in every one of the 48 continental states. 73 active Army installations. About $4 billion worth of American real estate. Of course, we can only show you a few examples of the training that is today building an American Army that's ready for anything, anywhere. Each of these symbols represents a training operation of one kind or another. Army training takes literally hundreds of forms. The skills called for today are many. But all of it begins where soldiering itself begins. With basic infantry training. The foot soldier is the basic unit of America's fighting strength. And it is the young citizenry of America which provides this strength. The transition from citizen to citizen soldier. This is the objective of basic training. And for the recruit, it is a transition which involves major changes in his way of living. Roughest eight weeks that you've ever spent in your life. During this eight weeks, you're going to find out how to survive as an individual soldier and how to work with other men in this platoon as a team. Get your foot off that footlock. You're going to be physically fit to go into combat. Now, men, I'm sorry to tell you, this is the fifth platoon. Now, I know that ever since you came in this Army, everybody's been telling you what to do. Well, that's just the beginning because you haven't heard nothing yet. You might find nothing to you. It is not myth to be pleasant to you. It is not going to be pleasant to you. And someday, you men may have to face combat. And someday, you're going to be in that situation where you're going to have to have this discipline. And when someone tells you to move, you've got to move or you're dead. One thing I want you to get straight, I've only got one mission here. And it's not to become your dear friends. You left that when you left your home. My job is to make soldiers, fighting men, a well-oiled fighting machine out of you civilians. As the weeks pass, the recruit is the object of much attention. He does learn to work as a part of a team. And he learns something of the pride that comes of doing it well. He is toughened, trimmed down, built up. He becomes intimately acquainted with the basic tools of the profession of arms. And he uses them under realistic conditions until he has mastered them. And along the way, he masters himself. By the end of his basic training cycle, he has learned many things. The self-discipline that comes from learning to accept discipline. The self-confidence that comes from succeeding at that which is not easy. The deep, sometimes surprising satisfaction of serving. In a few short weeks, the citizen has in fact become a soldier. Elsewhere too, KONAK plays a role in providing basic military training. In colleges and universities across the nation, ROTC units function as a source of young officers who will be ready, on graduation, to take on the responsibilities of command. Under KONAK supervision, the officers who serve as professors of military science feel deeply the importance of their work. I believe that no man of character will allow himself to remain unsuited for the best possible use of his talents in behalf of this essential task. Our course is aimed to develop your talent for leadership. I hope that you will not try to get by or simply do well. I hope you will give your best. Gentlemen, that is all for today. You are dismissed. Across the nation, the training operations of Army National Guard units, as well as those of the reserves, are another part of KONAK's continental responsibility, and a source of additional combat-ready manpower should the need arise. Within the Army itself, the training of soldiers goes on from basic infantry training to an operation which reaches out to take in the officers and men of nearly every free world nation on Earth. Advanced infantry training is a specific term and means just what it says. Here, for example, the man of arms receives instruction in the wide range of weapons which make the American foot soldier the formidable fighter he is, a graduate course in striking power. The objective of this training is the advanced infantry soldier whose signal, follow me, has become a motto and battle cry. Advanced infantry training is often a prelude to the specialized disciplines of airborne training. In combat, the airborne soldier must function well under pressure. He trains under pressure, and no mistake escapes the notice of its instructors. You dug your right shoulder into the ground. Next time, rotate the upper body to the left to make your proper parachute landing fall. Do you understand? Yes, Sergeant. Move out and make another parachute landing fall and show me you understand. Recover. As he moves ahead in his training, he moves at the double, both literally and figuratively. There is much that he must know how to do, and he will be drilled until he knows beyond question how to do it. Instant correction of mistakes is the trainee's best insurance against trouble in actual airdrop, and he knows it. Number one, you had your head up. Get your chin down on your chest. Recover. Number two. Number two, you had your head up. Your hands crossed on top of your reserve parachute. And so it progresses, the hard way, the only way. The payoff is the airborne soldier himself, able, confident, the nucleus of America's hard-hitting and far-ranging troubleshooter forces. It's Koenig's job to see that he is ready to move instantly and ready to function when he arrives via the wings and canopy, which have become his insignia. Ranger training is quite often the next step for men who have the mental and physical qualifications. It is not a course to be entered upon lightly. Hostile terrain, days without rest, and nights without sleep are an integral part of this training. Here must be in top shape physically even to begin. To stay, he must have that blend of stamina, stubbornness, and devotion that makes up what the Army calls a highly motivated soldier. It's not all physical conditioning. There are advanced classes in skills like demolitions and compass navigation, skills essential to this raid and fade type of combat operation. Ranger training demonstrates to the man who sticks with it that he is capable of far more than he ever thought possible. This is a valuable thing for a combat soldier to know. It is Koenig's intention for this training to be as realistic and demanding as possible, and the night maneuvers which take up a good part of the Ranger training's time meet both these requirements. To find the objective in darkness and silence, strike, destroy personnel and equipment, and get clear of the area, this is a typical Ranger training assignment. Operating against well-trained aggressor troops, the action can be disturbingly realistic. The U.S. Army Special Warfare Center is Koenig's answer to the threat of communist guerrilla and insurgency activities around the world. And the men who complete this training are special indeed. They must know not only how to use and maintain all the basic light weapons issued to American troops, but old and new weapons of many foreign nations. They must learn well, for their prime job will be to teach others. This familiarity cannot be superficial. They must know these weapons in terms of performance and capability, and then learn in the only really effective way by using them, getting the feel of them, seeing what they can do. A member of a Special Forces team must also be able to assemble and use a light radio transmitter and to send and receive Morse code. The communications specialist of the team must be able to build such a radio from parts available if he has to. Every man is trained and trained thoroughly in first aid. The kit carried by Special Forces teams is extensive to support the advanced capability of the team's medical aid specialist. Each man of the Special Forces team must be a skilled demolitionist, and at the Special Warfare Center he learns what types of explosives to use for a given objective, and where to place them for maximum effect. These forces often operate in remote areas. They may have to live off the land, so they are taught silent ways of securing food. Traps can provide meat for a guerrilla force, or act as silent and deadly sentries against the approach of hostile troops. Like the Ranger, the Special Forces soldier is trained to make impossible terrain his everyday route of travel, a necessity for men who may have to live and work deep in hostile territory. A highly specialized CONARG training establishment is housed in these buildings overlooking the Bay of Monterey in California. Here the languages of nearly every modern culture on Earth are taught to selected members of all our armed forces. The expanded requirements of today's Army, its global commitments and involvements create a vital need for men who can speak the language of other countries. Modern electronic facilities accelerate the learning pace, enabling many students in individual sound cubicles to work at a given language simultaneously. The objective is useful, practical and workable command of spoken language. The work sessions are concentrated, and the subject matter pertinent. Here a student responds in Russian. As the training of today's soldier becomes more specialized, it has also become more technical. Modern communications, systems able to link up forces separated by miles or even hundreds of miles, are as essential to the 20th century Army as weapons and ammunition. Equally essential are skilled Army technicians to service, operate and maintain the complex electronic devices which provide such communication. The training of such specialists is yet another aspect of Konark's responsibility. This highly technical kind of training extends to the new breed of artillery men. The missile man. The days when a soldier needed only to know how to keep a clean rifle and a closed mouth are no more. The weapons of today and the technology from which they have sprung make unique demands upon the men who must train to operate them. These soldier technicians are called upon to operate systems so complex and so powerful in destructive capability that they are revolutionizing the concept of artillery firepower. There has been much to learn and they are learning it well. Army's Sunday punch on the ground has not been neglected however. Konark's armored training responsibility has been increased and the men of today's armored forces train in realistic combat exercises with tanks and other armored vehicles which have greater range, firepower and punch than ever in history. Combat can come in a great number of ways and it is Konark's job to see that the army is ready to act on any scale, large or small. Indication of the widely varied training which Konark must oversee is this class of graduates. They are now in addition to being crack combat troops, military policemen. They have completed training which included instruction and skills required of civilian police and many more as well. Of the precision and discipline through which a skilled team of military police can master the disorganized mass emotions of a mob of rioters and at the school they have put that teaching into practice. Learned how a single MP at a key intersection can ensure an efficient flow of traffic whether that intersection be on an army post or on a supply route in a combat area their lives may depend upon an uninterrupted flow of supplies and material. Their training has fitted them for a wide variety of duties all over the world where they will work in cooperation with their military and civilian counterparts acting not only as military police but as unofficial ambassadors of goodwill. In a final example we touch on Konark's training function with regard to the high mobility required of today's army. Air transport means pilots and it is Konark's responsibility to train them. The army has fixed and rotary wing craft for every type of task and while this display does not show them all it indicates the scope of pilot training that becomes necessary in keeping them manned and ready. One type of training puts an army pilot and his tiny aircraft high above enemy positions to act as observer for artillery and pointing targets directing fire upon them. The army pilot must have the skill to make a landing field of whatever the terrain offers whether he's flying a light spotter plane or such heavier reconnaissance aircraft as the fast and rangy Grumman mohawk the army's largest aircraft the highly rugged and versatile caribou the copters play a major role in the army's air operations and their pilots attain a virtuosity of control that is sometimes startling to watch here's a whirly bird's square dance 50 feet above the ground such displays of precision are more than just an interesting show however for no less a degree of control is acceptable when a pilot must take off and skim the treetops avoiding enemy fire to complete a mission like this one the recovery of casualties from a forward combat area and when on a much larger scale waves of troop carrying copters move in to deliver an army assault force to a key combat objective it is army pilots who do the delivering the combat ready troops the men who transport them by land or air still others who provide communications ammunition supplies the people who perform the hundreds of different operations which make it possible for a fighting force to bring its power against an enemy all of these have gained their skill through training and across the breadth of our continent the providing of that training has been and remains one of the vital functions of Konark the continental army command what you have seen of course is only the smallest of samplings a few representative samples of Konark's training responsibility and this training of course is only one of a number of missions which Konark must fulfill but it is a vital one its objective is the basic one you heard described earlier readiness complete and constant the time and the circumstances in which America finds itself demand this degree of readiness your continental army command intends to make sure that this demand is met