ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY.

The war strength organization of the Infantry, which is similar to all arms of the military service, is as follows:

1. The squad. The squad consists of eight men, including a corporal in charge. The squad is the unit in which the private soldier lives, eats, sleeps, fights, and has his being until promotion or disability removes him from its associations. It is the team in which he learns and plays the fighting game. The squad is the unit upon which all of the work of the platoon and the company depends. Unless the men of each squad work together as a single man the work of the platoon becomes well-nigh impossible.

2. The platoon.-Strictly a fighting unit. It is normally composed of six squads, with noncommissioned officers and others who bring the total up to a strength of 57 enlisted men. It is commanded normally by a lieutenant. For combat the platoon is divided into two sections. Each section is normally under the command of a sergeant, who has a corporal (section guide) as an assistant. The lieutenant commanding the platoon is known as the platoon leader, and he has as an assistant a platoon sergeant and a detachment of privates for duty as runners and signalmen. This makes up the platoon headquarters. The education of the soldier is begun in the squad and finished in the platoon. When he learns what is expected of the squad and the platoon, and acquires the spirit of team play in these organizations, he is a trained and efficient member of his organization.

3. The company.-The rifle company consists of three platoons and the company headquarters, consisting of a detachment of noncommissioned officers, clerks, buglers, cooks, runners, and signalmen. The total strength of a company is 200 men and 6 officers. The company serves as a link to hold the platoons together and make them mutually supporting. The company commander assigns missions to the platoons in combat. The platoons apply to him for assistance they may need in carrying out their mission. The company is also the housekeeping agency; platoons do the fighting, but that is all they do as platoons. They must eat, sleep, draw clothing and pay, and be supplied with shelter, bathing facilities, and medical attendance. The company organization provides for all of this. The company may be likened to a large family, with three fighting members, the platoons, and a housekeeping member, the company headquarters.

4. The battalion.-The battalion is composed of five companies, three rifle companies, one machine-gun company, and one headquarters company. It is normally commanded by a major.

5. The regiment.-Three battalions, headquarters company, howitzer company, service company, attached medical personnel, and chaplain form a regiment, commanded by a colonel.

6. The brigade.-Two Infantry regiments, brigade headquarters, headquarters company, medical department, and chaplain form a brigade, commanded by a brigadier general.

7. The division.-Two Infantry brigades, one Artillery brigade of two regiments, one engineer regiment, one medical regiment, division air service, special troops, division headquarters, division train, attached medical personnel, commanded by a major general.

8. The corps.-Two or more divisions, corps troops including artillery, air and antiaircraft units, engineers, special troops, corps trains, commanded by an officer of the rank of major general or above.

9. The army.-Two or more corps, and army troops including artillery, air service, antiaircraft units, engineers, signal units, medical units, military police and army trains, commanded by an officer with the rank of major general or above.

THE UNIFORM.

TITLES, INSIGNIA, AND FACINGS.

In the days before the high-powered rifle—that is, in all of our wars before the Spanish-American War-our Army wore blue uniforms with gilt buttons. The type of uniform varied from the cutaway coat with white or red facings, white "small-clothes" breeches, and leggings-the picturesque uniform of the old Continentals—to the much more simple close-fitting blue blouse and blue trousers of the late Indian campaigns. Blue is visible at a greater distance than any other color, as the dusty road and the cut-over wheat field are yellow, the pasture land is green, and the wild flowers and falling leaves are red; but there is no blue in nature except the water and the sky, and the soldier did his fighting on land.

In the old days of the short-range musket the color of the uniform made no difference, for a soldier was visible long before he was within range. "Don't fire until you can see the whites of their eyes" was the order at Bunker Hill, less than the distance from the pitcher's box to the home plate. When Pickett charged at Gettysburg scarcely a musket was fired until the two lines were no farther apart than is the deep outfield from the home plate on the regulation baseball field.

With the development of the small-caliber, flat-trajectory, highpowered rifle which would shoot with deadly accuracy at a greater distance than the eye could distinctly see, it became a matter of life

and death to make the soldier as nearly indistinguishable as possible and so the modern uniform is dirt colored with dull-bronze buttons, the rifle barrel and bayonet are blued steel, and the steel helmet and canteen are olive-drab color. No more white tents or blue blankets-they are the same greenish brown as the supply wagons, artillery caissons, guns and gun carriages. Everything is as nearly invisible as possible. "A battery seen is a battery lost" is axiomatic in modern warfare.

In the old days the captains and lieutenants were differently uniformed from the enlisted men; the colonels and majors wore a more elaborate coat and trimmings than that of the junior officers, and the generals were still more showily clad. Nowadays at a distance of a hundred yards the general and the private appear to be uniformed alike, for at a short distance the chevrons of the noncommissioned officer, the cuff braid and shoulder insignia of rank of the officer are all practically invisible.

The officers' insignia of rank in our Army differ from insignia in use in other countries and have been of gradual and interesting development. In 1780 the major generals were ordered to wear an epaulette on each shoulder each with two stars and the brigadiers were to wear one star on each epaulette. In 1832 the colonel's eagle appeared. The Infantry wore silver epaulettes, all other arms gold and the eagles were of the opposite metal. A few years later the silver oak leaf for the lieutenant colonel appeared, the two bars for the captain and one bar for the first lieutenant. The major and the second lieutenant needed no mark of rank on their epaulettes, for the uniform of the former indicated that he was a field officer just as did the uniform of the latter show him to be a company officer.

When, for the sake of uniformity, the epaulettes of all of the branches of the Army were made of gold, the smaller shoulder strap without fringe was devised for field service and the uniform simplified; the easiest way to designate the major was to reverse the metal of the oak leaf and so the system as finally established became four stars to indicate a general, three for a lieutenant general, two for a major general, one for a brigadier general, a silver eagle for a colonel, a silver oak leaf for a lieutenant colonel, a gold oak leaf for a major, two silver bars for a captain, one silver bar for a first lieutenant, and finally during the World War one gold bar for a second lieutenant.

Another question of interest is the origin of the names of rank and organization. Why does a lieutenant general rank a major general and what is a regiment? The answer takes one back a thousand years. The company is commanded by a captain and his title is derived from the Latin word for head, "caput." His second