 From Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the men and women of your army are on the alert to defend our nation, you, the American people, against aggression. This is The Big Picture. Welcome to The Big Picture. I'm Captain Carl Zimmerman. We have an army for one reason. To fight should have become necessary. Soldiers of free nations fight only to preserve their freedom, not to conquer or enslave other people. Last week on Our Big Picture program, we showed you how the American soldier must know what he is fighting for. But he must also know how to fight. Because we never know when the enemy will force us to fight. Our army must be ready. And we can be ready only after hard, rugged training. For the young men who are becoming soldiers in army training centers here and overseas, training today is rugged because combat is even more rugged. Combat experience shows that our soldiers must be physically tough, mentally alert, and skilled in the care and use of their weapon. These three abilities, plus the eagerness to use them for the good of the team, are what make the army fighter. Most of our new soldiers never fired a weapon before putting on the uniform. The belief that Americans are naturally good soldiers has led to other beliefs that don't stand up under close study. One of these ideas is that Americans who are brave and self-reliant as individuals will always show these qualities when gathered together as soldiers. This does happen, but only after each man has learned how to live and fight alongside the other members of his team. Life in a training center is not only rugged, but it moves at a fast pace. General Mark Clark, who as Chief of the Army Field Forces is charged with the training of all field troops, has said, in the training of the American soldier, great emphasis is placed on preparing him psychologically and physically to meet and overcome a savage and ruthless enemy who violates every recognized rule of international law. A trainee learns to be a soldier much as you would learn a civilian job. He starts by acquiring basic skills, which every soldier must know no matter where he may serve later. A new 16-week basic training is a coordinated program with some subjects previously taught in separate classes, now presented concurrently with other instruction. Here's how this works. Map reading may be taught during field marches rather than in classroom lectures. Trainees learn how to take cover or dig foxholes as part of other training, not as separate subjects. There are no non-essential subjects in basic training. Its main purpose is to teach the new soldier how to use and care for his weapons and equipment, as well as how to care for himself. At the rifle range, each man gets to know the capabilities and limitations of his weapon. He comes to regard it as vital, not only to the mission of his unit, but to his own preservation. Everywhere he goes during his training day, the new soldier usually carries his rifle with him in the field or classroom. Although the tempo of the training program has been speeded up, the trainee still gets plenty of individual instruction. Experienced instructors teach the importance of such things as taking care of clothing and equipment. First aid. Guard duty. The soldier's responsibility in protecting government property. Precautions against enemy chemical attack. How to conceal and camouflage troops and equipment against enemy observation. Knowing how to work with one squad. This includes how the squad is organized and how it operates in combat. Soon the satisfaction of learning how to be a soldier far outweighs whatever difficulty a man may find in getting into the swing of things. The busy training schedule allows time for supervised athletics. Physical conditioning is continuous, integrated with other training. As the weeks pass, the bodies toughen. Muscles and minds respond to discipline. The short close marches to and from training areas and classrooms are now expanded to longer route marches and progressively longer forced marches. By this time there are bivouacs, gun drill and no one minds very much if it gets dirty digging foxholes, machine gun emplacements, or mortar emplacements. Some veterans claim that hard training can be as tough as combat itself. For at least two weeks of the training period, the men live in pup tents and train in the field regardless of the weather. Individual training is something like making the football team. After a couple of weeks, the men forget about feeling physically sore and find the enjoyment of playing the game. They must stay with it, train hard in order to be able to carry the ball when the time comes. Your army is constantly trying out new methods to make instruction more practical and more readily understandable to the trainee. Effective training aids are used to help the soldier absorb the teaching and if there are more ways to make the instruction interesting, leave it to your army to find them. Training of one kind or another continues for the soldier as long as he is in the army. There are important lessons to be learned in the amphibious training course or perhaps it's back to the range to learn to fire additional weapons like the 30 caliber machine gun, the recoilless rifle, the portable flamethrower, the various mortars and as his training progresses beyond the basic stage, the new soldier is impressed more and more with the importance of teamwork. It discovers that the rifle squad is a team made up of soldiers armed with several different weapons and trained in special skills. Each man on the squad has a special job to do to make the team move. It takes a team of soldiers to fire an artillery piece, run a tank. No matter what a soldier's job is in the army, it must be done exactly right so that his team will perform the way it should. The new soldier learns that your army is made up of many teams. Tank infantry teams, infantry tank artillery teams, air ground teams, supply teams, all working together to win. Some of the methods introduced in World War II to add realism to training are now back in the program such as the infiltration course. A company of men crawls out of a starting ditch, ahead of them are machine guns firmly mounted and fixed to assure safety. The guns fire live ammunition over the heads of the men as they crawl 75 yards toward the finish line. Each soldier inches forward, head and body down, and keeping his rifle out of the dirt. There are obstacles in his path, barbed wire barriers, under which he must pass on his back, and at frequent intervals demolition charges are set off to emulate actual battle. Finally, the soldier rolls into the finish trench, fixes his bayonet, and charges a dummy enemy. Constant improvements are being made on the combat in cities course. In mock villages, trainees using live ammunition and grenades learn the special tactics of street fighting and advancing from house to house learn how to toss grenades into buildings before entering. And how long to hold a grenade before the toss. All too frequently in actual combat, the enemy has thrown back grenades to the center because they weren't held long enough. The new soldier learns teamwork and coordination in locating hidden enemy troops in village buildings and how to ferret them out. The third of the three combat indoctrination courses is the close combat course. This tests a man's ability to handle himself under unexpected conditions. As a team advances, targets suddenly appear. Man-sized silhouettes spring up from the ground. This course is training for keeping constantly alert to be ready to use one's weapons at a moment's notice. It gives the trainee confidence in himself and in his bodies who work with him. During their training period, most new soldiers witness an impressive demonstration of firepower. Like the mad minute at Fort Benning, Georgia, where a representative group of combined weapons of a reinforced infantry company fire simultaneously. Demonstrations such as this show the enormous firepower that a standard American division carries. And familiarizes the new men with the weapons available in supporting units is just what it is. In field problems, trainees fire their weapons using blank ammunition. Under the new system of teaching the technique of fire, the trainee moves out into an area, is fired on, and then proceeds to a firing point where he takes positions. Practice mines which can be detonated without harming a man, make the trainee acutely conscious of the mine hazard and give him experience in mine laying. Groups of men pass through minefields, mark or detonate the mines, and then relay them in different spots for the next groups to discover. Your army's light aviation is proving to be of considerable value in troop training. Planes are used to accustom the soldier to enemy bombing attacks. Infamiliarization with procedure for the adjustment of artillery fire and in reconnaissance training. The aggressor force plays a prominent role in the training program. Equipped with the uniforms and weapons of a mythical enemy, the aggressor force brings a realistic atmosphere to field problems. By firing blank ammunition against trainee attackers, the aggressor force provides sufficient resistance to make the field problem seem very close to the real thing. As an aid to avoiding panic and hysteria on the battlefield, the new soldier is exposed to the noise and confusion of combat. Instead of just sitting and listening to the shells passing overhead, the unit engages in a tactical problem. The trainee is taught to respect enemy artillery but not to fear it. He learns to appreciate the aid which friendly artillery offers. Where conditions permit, he approaches in a foxhole while a tank passes over him. This helps to give him confidence and the ability to act calmly. One third of all tactical training is done at night. This is to prepare soldiers for action under all conceivable conditions. Very recently, Army cameramen were on hand to record combat training exercises at Fort Dix, New Jersey. This attack course provides the trainee with the opportunity of showing to himself as well as to his superiors how well he has learned his lessons. Here, the young soldier must apply his know-how to situations that seem confused and unexpected because that's the way things are in combat. The soldier and his squad make mistakes in these combat exercises. Now at Fort Dix, they're just mistakes. Later, in actual combat, they would cost lives. Fort Dix attack problem were the commander of the 9th Division, General Allen, and Secretary of the Army, Pace. How are you, General? Fine, thank you so much. I've enjoyed this exercise and for me, it had all the elements of realism. This certainly looks like a place where there had really been combat. Thought maybe, though, to find out from some of the men, we might step over here and talk to a couple of the men who've been through it. What's your judgment on that? I'll be fine, Mr. Secretary. Step on over. How are you, son? Son, what's your name? My name is Private Robert Gilmour. Where's your home? I'm in Connecticut, sir. How long have you been in this training course? I've been here for 16 weeks, sir. Is this the 16th week? Yes, sir. Did you just participate in this maneuver? Yes, sir, I have. What's your reaction to it? Do you think it's realistic? Very much so, sir. Yes, I do. How about air support, tank support? Do you get the feel of being on a team? Yes, sir. I think it's a very good coordination between the three of them, sir. Tell me, do you think they could make it tougher and you could take it? I think so, sir, yes. Do you think you could take it even tougher? After all the training, sir, yes. Well, that's what I want to know. Now, overall, the thing I really want to know is do you feel like after you've had something like this you could play your part in combat if you had to go into combat? That's the real question. Yes, sir, I could. Very much so. Do you feel that way? Yes, sir, I do. Fine. Thanks very much. And best of luck to you, old boy. Soldier, I'm Frank Pace, secretary of the Army. My name is Private Browning, sir. How long have you been in the Army, Private Browning? I've been here for about four months and a half. Four months and a half. How long have you been in this training course here in Fort Decc? 16 weeks, sir. Tell me your own reaction to this maneuver you've just been through. Well, I think it's a very good problem, sir. You think it's a good problem? You think you get a feel of what it'd be like to be in combat? Well, I think it do give you a lot of more guts and it really may be for being able to take at yourself more better by going through this problem before going overseas. Do you develop some buddies in this outfit that you think you could rely on if you went overseas? I think you could, sir. I see. Now, let me ask you just one other question. Do you think that you could take it if it were tougher? I think I could. You think you could have it? After being... going through the 16 weeks of base, I think... You think your 16 weeks fixes you up so you can take it tough? That's what I like to hear an American soldier say. Good luck to you, old boy. Thank you, sir. All right. After they have been fully trained in the fundamentals, soldiers take part in maneuvers like exercise snowfall at Camp Drum in Northern New York. Maneuvers are tactical exercises by large bodies of troops. One of the main values of maneuvers is that they give practice in teamwork on a bigger scale than anything possible in the earlier period of training. Companies, battalions and regiments learn to work as teams just as the squads and platoons learned it earlier. On maneuvers, the soldier begins to see how the team is much larger and greater than he thought and that he depends on a lot more people than members of his own squad or company. Born troops were part of the maneuvers at Operation Snowfall. Large numbers of paratroopers participated in the airdrop invasion of a cold, snow-covered country. Southern Pines was another recent exercise held in North Carolina. Here, our troops gained valuable knowledge on what fighting is like in a temperate climate. Exercise Portrex in Puerto Rico was designed to prepare troops for combat fighting in the semi-tropics. In the snows and cold of Alaska, in war games called Exercise Sweetbriar, soldiers practiced the fundamentals they had learned and gained new experience in arctic fighting. The dry sands of Nevada was the scene of Operation Desert Rock. Here, soldiers had a brand new experience, a first-hand introduction to an atomic bomb explosion. They were at a safe distance but still close enough to understand what to expect from atomic warfare. Maneuvers are not confined to the United States. Mock warfare on a giant scale is carried on by American troops stationed in Europe and in Japan, where our fighting men undergo intensive training, which prepares them for Korea. In all our more and still more emphasis on training, your army is doing everything possible to teach our men how to survive in battle. This includes all those men who have jobs behind the lines. They too may have occasion to fight, even if only to defend themselves. Soldiers in Korea know that a well-trained fighter is an asset to himself and to his unit, that a man must be good in combat in order to fight and win and stay alive. Soldiers now being trained in the USA are given this reminder. Training is tough because battle is tougher. Training can save my life. By sweating now, I may save blood later. More sweat, less blood. Yes, more sweat, less blood. That's what makes a good combat soldier and keeps him alive. With this goal before them, the men of your army are pitching into their training with energy and enthusiasm. The clue to next week's program is in the motto, duty, honor, country. The three words at four generations have inspired men to become leaders at the United States Military Academy, West Point. This is Captain Carl Zimmerman inviting you to be with us then.