This Is the Army

Originally conceived as a means of tapping the pool of officer material resident in the colleges before the Navy skimmed off the cream, the ERC has never been particularly benevolent toward its members. Within the past three weeks, it has outdone itself in making things uncomfortable for men in the Reserve Corps, coming out with four official statements, three of which have directly contradicted one another. This gross inefficiency has resulted in more than the expected amount of confusion, and has played havoc with the farsighted plans of colleges and students.

The first War Department statement on the ERC said that all men who started their second term before December 31 would be allowed to complete the term. A second order, directly contradicting the first, came out two weeks later, informing the hapless students that the date had been moved up from December 31 to January 27. In the interim, orders had begun to arrive to many students, only to have them rescinded when the later order was issued. Within the last two days, the War Department has again directly reversed itself, changing the date from January 27 back to December 31. Apologies were made by saying that the first change was due to an error on the part of a junior officer.

This time, at least, the fault lies not with the body of the Army, but with the War Department at its head. Whether the Department has finally made up its mind will be discovered only when the actual orders begin to arrive.