Address Over Columbia & Associated Broadcast Networks

January 18, 1946

Tonight I should like to speak to every man and woman in the service, and also I hope that my words go straight to the fireside of every family at home with a loved one overseas. It is my purpose to tell you the facts about this demobilization situation, which has suffered much from misunderstanding.

Last Tuesday the War Department announced the formula for discharge from the Army up to June 30, 1946. The chief points, as they affect enlisted men, are these:

First, every man, both abroad and at home, who is surplus to our needs and who cannot profitably take the place of a higher point man, is to be discharged as rapidly as he can be processed. Our needs do not include made work and useless drill.

Next, by April 30, this year, all enlisted men with 45 points or with 30 months service will be out of the Army or aboard ship returning home. Finally, by June 30, all enlisted men with 40 points or with 2 years service as of that date will be out of the Army or aboard ship returning home. This does not apply to volunteers, of course.

It represents a slower pace for those few months than the Army had tried to maintain. Some men who hoped for discharge by March may have to say in the Army one, two or perhaps three months longer, because we cannot continue to do our job without them. I shall explain the compelling need in a moment. Bur first I want to say that this schedule of discharges, as I have given it to you, will be carried out to the letter. If there were doubts before, each soldier of extended service now knows where he stands. Now, this is what has been done in demobilization so far: Most of this happened, of course, before I came to Washington. Of the 8,300,000 in the Army when Germany surrendered, more than 5,000,000 have been discharged. Over half of the tremendous force we assembled for war has already returned to civilian life. Actually, more than 5/8th of the VE-Day soldiers are now civilians. Think of it! No other demobilization has ever been carried out so speedily, or on a scale remotely comparable to this in vastness.

After VJ-Day, the demobilization time-table was speeded up to such an extent that 1,665,000 more men and women had returned to their homes by New Year’s than we had dared hope would be possible. The Army has really put its heart into returning war-weary men to their homes.

From the outset, it has been evident that a time would come when the rate of discharge would have to be adjusted to the number of men still needed to do our job oversees and in this country. Under original estimates that time was expected next spring. The rapid demobilization rate advanced the date. Everything possible has been done to postpone a slowdown. Overseas commanders are now cutting their requirements to the barest minimum. Similar economies are taking place in this country. In an effort to get men overseas faster and relieve veterans, we have cut the basic training period for recruits by a month.

We began an intensive campaign to recruit volunteers for the Army, backed by the most attractive conditions ant Army has ever offered - anywhere. I wish we could have an all-volunteer Army. But facts do not yet bear out the hope that enough young Americans will volunteer to produce the Army of 1,500,000 to which we shall have reduced by July 1, 1946.

You see the situation. We had to put on the brakes. That is all. There has been no change in basic demobilization policy. The actual cause of the slow-down is to match the diminishing strength of the Army with the diminishing size of the job. It has nothing to do with brass or future plans for the peace-time Army. But all of the men that would have been out of the Army by July 1 under the original schedule will be out or en route home, on that day, under the revised rate.

Now, what are these needs that keep veterans in service when they want to come home? In addition to the historic mission of the Army - to maintain a force in defense of the nation - the close of the war has left our country with great added responsibilities overseas. These place new duties upon the Army, falling into two parts.

The first is the pacification of enemy lands and the establishment of control measures dictated by our Government’s policies. These policies are not fixed by the Army. They are decided by higher authority. Then the Army is assigned the task of carrying them out in the lands of our conquered enemies. The shooting war is over, but we are engaged in disarming Germany and Japan - to make certain that those two lustful countries stay beaten till they learn how to live as neighbors with the rest of us.

From my own experiences as Commander of the European Theater, I know how big and difficult is the task of occupational forces in countries that have suffered physical, moral and Governmental destruction. It takes a great many individuals to do the job. We must watch the hostile population for any renewal of resistance. That requires police work and supervision right down to their local Governments so that we actually know what is going on. We must patrol zone and international boundaries - 2,000 miles of them in Germany and Austria, for example. We must destroy fortifications and military stores. We must guard important power stations, telephone exchanges, bridges, and other possible targets of enemy sabotage. In 365 separate stations we are taking care of 450,000 of Hitler’s unfortunate victims. We must institute educational programs, scrutinize records, take measures to guard health and enforce proper sanitation, if for no other reason than to safeguard the lives of our own men. We must keep there a reserve of military strength.

These duties are a continuing charge on the Army. They will last as long as we occupy those lands. Reductions in future troop strength will be made as our policies progress toward curing these people of their warlike habits. But as long as we have occupation forces, we shall need manpower.

The second part of the overseas job is huge, but should steadily diminish. It is the liquidation of the great depots, warehouses, camps, bases, ports, airfields and other installations which we built to fight the global war in Europe and the Pacific. Also we must protect and care for the millions of tons of Government property, bought with billions in taxpayer dollars. Now that the fighting is over, it must be determined how much of this is needed for our occupation forces: how much can be liquidated through the civilian disposal agencies. But until this property actually passes from control of our Government, the Army is charged with inspecting, repairing, maintaining, accounting for and guarding all of it. In the awful poverty of the conquered countries, unbridled thievery is normal to living. If we relaxed our vigilance, the stores would melt away overnight.

But as the property is disposed of, warehouses abandoned and bases rolled up, a proportionate number of men come home. The revised estimates of our requirements, both overseas and in this country, indicate that, by July 1, we can do the job overseas and provide the necessary support for them at home with an Army of 1,500,000. This figure includes the Air Forces.

I have said little about our difficult and numerous problems of demobilization at home, but I assure you that the search for surplus men is going on here just as earnestly as it is abroad.

To do all these things requires that the rate of volunteer enlistments be stepped up and that Selective Service meet the Army’s calls. Any failure in either the recruitment of volunteers of the Selective Service draft of young men will seriously jeopardize the Army’s ability to carry out its assigned missions. These are the hard facts of the problem. In our earnest study of this problem, we are working closely with the Congress and other governmental agencies. Invariably they share our desire to bring home quickly the men who bore the brunt of battle. But at the same time, we must meet our needs in manpower.

In the foregoing I have outlined the responsibilities and commitments which require us to keep men in the Army to perform tasks assigned us by the highest authority in the nation. If our inflow of new men should fail to produce by July 1 the 1,500,000-man Army we require for these missions, then some of the functions now charged to the Army must be abandoned. There is no alternative.

The men who have now received the Army’s pledge to be released by June 30, will be discharged by that time or be on a ship coming home. If we are left short of our 1,500,000 men on that date, the policy-making agencies of the Government must decide which of the many vital functions now assigned to the Army are to be dropped.

Understanding the War Department’s mission and the present needs in manpower I am sure that all Americans, civilians and soldiers alike, will feel more personally their part in the great task which the Government of the United States - and the people - have given the Army to carry out. Its importance should be realized by every citizen. The mothers and fathers and wives of soldiers in our armies of occupation should feel proud of what their men are doing in securing the peace.

Our success is this great endeavor is the sum of success in thousands of jobs. Some jobs seem unimportant. Some may be made to seem so, because they are difficult to dramatize. I know how yearning for home - and boredom - may fill a soldier’s letters with a disturbing sense of his own unimportance in the pattern of Army life. But our Army is playing a great role in a troubled world. As each of us comes to understand this truth, then he will take pride in the part he is playing.

The fighting has stopped. The urgency of war has gone. But we have a new urgency - the necessity of building a secure peace - a peace purchased with the lives of our comrades. The Army’s mission is to do its part in establishing and assuring this peace and to support our country in the great cooperative venture of nations. For myself, I feel that the practical common sense which is an American characteristic will meet the issue.

This is a time when maturity and wisdom must assert themselves for the safety of this nations future. Together we have won a great victory. It will become glorious if we are able to make it the last one we need to win.