Photo by White
The Athletic Field
But to return to my subject of physical training proper. No opportunity is lost to impress upon each man the practical use to which he will put his knowledge of physical training when he becomes an officer. He is urged to prepare himself to the best of his ability to become a proficient instructor for the enlisted men whom he will later command. In this connection, the cadets learn in their course of Military Hygiene that the object of all physical training is to develop the human body in its entirety in order that there shall result a perfect equilibrium between all its functions. Many recruits join the Army without the slightest coördination of their body. Although well formed they are awkward, clumsy, stoop shouldered, without ability to make their different members act in unison with their minds. If an officer does not know what to do with these men he will never succeed in getting good work out of them. His first duty therefore is to develop the recruit’s body, especially the functions of control, the coördination between eye and hand, because the success of line troops is largely dependent upon physical aptitude. The modern war makes greater demands than ever upon the soldier’s physique. I heard an observer, recently returned from the European War, state that the infantryman is now so loaded down with packs, steel helmets, hand grenades, and rifle that he finds it difficult to advance faster than a walk. The strain upon the physique of the infantryman carrying his pack is greater than upon soldiers of other arms, and since graduates in time of war will be concerned largely with the training of infantry, it is of paramount importance that cadets should understand the building up and care of the bodies of their men. A soldier must possess more than the average muscular strength, endurance, and organic vigor.
I see before me daily the fine results of the system of physical training at the Academy. Ungainly plebes gradually assume a well-rounded appearance, an erect carriage with head up and an elastic walk. I sometimes have to rub my eyes when I behold a cadet whom I once remembered as an unformed plebe, as loose jointed as a big Newfoundland puppy, but who now appears before my astonished vision as a smart soldierly First Classman. When the cadets have completed their four years course they have a decided physical stamp, showing that each one has been trained by the same system.
At the end of the year in June, when the Post is thronged with visitors, relatives, and friends of cadets who are present for the graduation exercises, an outdoor demonstration of the setting-up exercises is given on the Plain. The precision and uniformity with which the movements are executed arouse great interest as eight hundred supple young bodies respond as one to the sonorous commands of the instructor perched on a solid wooden table.
Setting up Drill on the Plain
This drill is usually followed by the Outdoor Meet, the annual athletic event corresponding to the Indoor Meet. Each class has its best representatives entered to win a victory in the dashes, hurdle races, long distance races, hammer throwing, jumping, and pole vaulting. Back of the roped lines surge the cadets of the various classes, cheering themselves hoarse for their own representatives. Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, friends, friends’ friends, in the fluffiest and gayest summer dresses devouringly trail their “Kaydet,” and give excited and exaggerated opinions about things of which they are totally ignorant,—but bless their hearts! their presence is an inspiration to the young gods at their Olympian games.
On the June morning of the Outdoor Meet, West Point usually offers one of her incomparably beautiful days as a fitting setting for the display of her cadets’ physical prowess. And when the Meet ends, the cadets all feel that one more year’s progress been made in their physical development. The First Classmen who on the morrow will go forth into the Army, leaving the protecting walls of West Point, reflect with emotion and gratitude upon all that West Point’s training has done to strengthen their bodies to endure whatever hardships that might arise in their new lives as officers.