I wonder whether I could expedite this by asking you to forget any orders you have received so far today and break ranks and gather around here so that I can talk to you. Standing out there you remind me too much of a firing squad.

Ordinarily, when I go to a station like this to visit I ask that there be no demonstration of this kind. I permitted this one. I am glad to see how well you perform.

First of all, you are soldiers. Don’t forget that. No matter what the nature of your work, no matter what you have to do, from now on you are wearing the uniform of your country and you are part of the fighting forces of it. Now you are soldiers - with a soldier’s job. Not soldiers in a Napoleonic sense - you are as modern as Radar and you are just as important to the Command. We in command have learned of this necessity through experience.

We went into Africa just a year ago last November. In Africa we did not have an organization of this kind set up. In Sicily we were better prepared; in Italy still a lot better. We will be still better prepared when we are on the Continent, due to the training you have had and the work you have done. You men here - you will do the job that must be done. It is this: although humanitarian in its results, your job is to help us win the war.

You have got to get the rear areas organized - electric lights, roads, and supply - and you must keep them working and get them restored as quickly as possible to some semblance of peace-time standards, so that they can support to the utmost the armies that are fighting at the front. You must take that responsibility for dealing with civilian affairs, whether it is restoring public utilities or helping a nursing mother who cannot get milk, and if you don’t do your job, the armies will fail. A modern army is of great depth in the field. The fighting front of an army is a fringe of a tremendous organization. Many men are needed to advance and supply those at the very front.

First of all, you are part of an Allied team. Always remember that. Because your section of the army is called “Civil Affairs” you must not make the mistake of thinking you are politicians. You are not politicians or anything else but soldiers. You are not here to serve any nationalistic purpose or idea in the political field, no matter what you did in civil life. You are here to help a Commander win battles.

There can be no differences between British and Americans at any level. Problems that need adjustment are solved, and adjustments are made, on a higher level than ours. I get a directive from two Governments, and that directive is translated into its various parts and comes to you, but that doesn’t mean that either of those two parts is British or American.

If you are a British Officer, whenever you have a particularly difficult or important job, when you go to handle the problem, tuck some American under your arm and go to it. Keep together all the time. You will find that the people with whom you deal will come to realize that here is an operating force that has no differences that are susceptible of being exploited. And I mean just that - you have got to stick together.

I said, of course, that your job is largely, in its results, humanitarian, but its purposes are military - to win this war. The distant future, of course, may present to many of you a different kind of job, possibly under an organism not as exclusively military. But let me ask you not to worry your minds about that phase of the future. Stick to your knitting! You are soldiers doing a soldier’s job, and you are absolutely necessary.

Now a word about what you are doing here. No Commander can ever accumulate the supplies, the organization, the men that he needs in exact timing with the existence of that need. In other words, he piles up reserves. For some time some of you here have been in reserve. You’re probably getting bored, some of you. You are a little tired of idleness, particularly when some of you were extraordinarily busy men in civil life, and you gave up many things - made many sacrifices - and you are getting damned tired of not being used usefully in view of your sacrifices.

Your time is coming, so don’t worry. I will never forget a Civil Affairs Captain who came up to me in Italy and told me that he hadn’t had any sleep in three solid days. I would enjoy my leisure, if I had any, right now, because if you get distributed over a war-torn country where there are no facilities - lights are gone, and there is no coal, and there are no doctors and no medicine and there is not anything else, and it is all on you, you are going to be busy - very busy. So be prepared. We will give you plenty to do.

In the meantime, the great reason for my coming out here to say hello to you is this: because you are a new organism in war - at least in this vast organization you are a new organism - I was afraid you might get to thinking of yourselves as a substitute and not an actual member on the team. I want to assure you you are a playing member on the team. Let me tell you we think you are a playing member on the team - a ball carrier - and when you get the ball we expect you to take it a long way.

Good-bye and good luck to all of you.