CMTC Part 1

CMTC Companies on the parade ground at Camp McClellan.
Led by the 22nd Infantry Regimental Band on the right, having made the course,
and bringing the formations back to the Camp Commander's stand on the opposite side of the field.

Major General Leonard Wood

Military training camps for civilians, to promote good citizenship and national defense were established just prior to World War I. Participation in this training was entirely voluntary. In 1913, under the direction of Major General Leonard Wood, two vacation camps were held for students from educational institutions, one at Monterey, California, and the other at Gettysburg, Pa. The men who attended these camps paid their own expenses. Four camps were held the following year. In his address to Congress of that year, President Woodrow Wilson said "We must depend in every time of national peril, in the future as in the past, not upon a standing army, nor yet upon a reserve army, but upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms. We should encourage such training and make it a means of discipline, which our young men will learn to value."

In 1915 five camps were held. The graduates of these camps formed the Military Training Camps Association, which helped to insert section 54 in the National Defense Act, June 3, 1916, authorizing voluntary summer camps at the expense of the government. Under this provision 12 camps were held in 1916. With the United States' entry into World War I, in 1917, these camps were turned into officers' training camps for the duration of the war. In 1920, Secretary of War John W. Weeks, approved the permanent establishment of voluntary training camps, and directed the War Department to include such in its annual budget. The first camps were opened in 1921, with provisions made to train 11,000 men. Applications in 1921 were four times greater than the capacity of the camps. In 1922 training was given to more than 20,000 men; the following year 25,000 were enrolled and in 1924 the number exceeded 30,000.

John W. Weeks
Secretary of War

Camp McClellan was chosen as the site for the Citizens' Military Training Camp (CMTC)
for the Fourth Corps Area (IV Corps) of the United States.

Camp Headquarters Staff
Camp McClellan, Alabama 1924
Bottom row center is Brigadier General Edwin B. Winans, Commanding Officer of Camp McClellan

The primary aim of the Citizens' Military Training Camps (CMTC) was to promote good citizenship, through health, physical, mental and moral values. Instruction was given in a sequence of four years. The courses were the Basic, the Red, the White and the Blue. Each course lasted approximately one month and was held during the summer. Young men were admitted to the beginning course between the ages of 17 and 24, "provided they be of good character, intelligence and physical condition."

The government paid for all expenses, including transportation, uniforms, food, quarters and medical care. There was no service obligation. The camp schedule called for elementary infantry drill in the beginning and later for special training in the different branches of the service. A large part of the training day was devoted to physical training and athletic sports. Army Chaplains saw to the religious needs of the trainees. Many who enrolled in the CMTC were inclined thereafter to join the National Guard or Organized Reserve.

Every effort was made to instill in the trainees, a devotion to country, a sense of civic responsibility, and an ideal of individual development toward physical, mental and moral excellence. Basic military training and discipline were taught, and the students were expected to conduct themselves like soldiers for the time they were in the camp. Heavy emphasis was placed on physical training, and organized sports were considered part of the training program.