Technical Nature
Chemical warfare, besides being the newest, is the most technical and most highly specialized Service under the War Department. There is no class of people in civil life, and no officers or men in the War Department, who can take up chemical warfare successfully until they have received training in its use. This applies not only to the use of materials in attack, but to the use of materials for defense. Ten years from now perhaps this will not be true. It is certainly hoped that it will not be. By that time the entire Army should be pretty thoroughly trained in the general principles and many of the special features of chemical warfare. If not, chemical warfare cannot be used in the field with the efficiency and success with which it deserves to be used. Furthermore, it is believed that within ten years the knowledge of the gases used in chemical warfare will be so common through the development of the use of these same materials in civil life, that it will not be so difficult, as at the present date, to get civilians who are acquainted with Chemical Warfare Service materials.