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Physical Training

Creator: H. E. Mock (author)
Date: May 1919
Publication: Carry On: Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors
Source: American Printing House for the Blind, Inc., M. C. Migel Library
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1  Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4

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This team symbolized the spirit which this major put into every man in the development battalion. He did it by means of physical training and competitive games. Eighty-five per cent, of his men, formerly considered the riff-raff, developed into A class fighting men and went over.

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Physical training has also had a definite part in the hospitals and convalescent centers in restoring the wounded soldiers. Since the signing of the armistice the thoughts of the officers in charge of this work were turned from remaking fighting men to remaking fighting civilians -- men imbued with determination and with a spirit to overcome every handicap.

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A great number of the physical trainers formerly assigned to combat divisions have been transferred to work among the convalescent soldiers. In the wards, light setting-up exercises are given but as soon as possible the patient is ordered out of doors to enter a little more strenuous training. Week by week his progress is noted and week by week he is promoted into a higher class -- ever working toward that day when his maximum restoration will be attained, his hardening process completed, and he will be ordered up for discharge.

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Physical training has come into its own during this war. It has developed tens of thousands of hollow-chested, stooped-shouldered, slouchy young men into upstanding, fearless, stalwart specimens of American manhood. It has taken those unfit to go overseas and developed them to the point where they could go across or at least could do effective limited service and free other able-bodied men for combat service. And now it is playing a most important part in rebuilding the nation's fighters who have become disabled in the strife. The indomitable spirit of our soldiers -- fighters, every one!

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