Beginning in 1921 young American men were eligible for a voluntary month-long military preparedness program known as the Citizens’ Military Training Camp. The camps were held on military bases across the U.S. and supervised by the U.S. Army. Men aged seventeen to twenty-four were invited to spend a month learning how to march, drill, and shoot.
The U.S. Government paid for all expenses, including roundtrip transportation to and from the summer camp. After completing a “Basic Course” the first summer, trainees were encouraged to return in future summers for further instruction. Those who completed four summers of camp were eligible to be commissioned as officers in the Army Reserve. The camps promised to develop “courage, loyalty, character and good common sense” in the men who attended.
While nearly 400,000 men had at least one summer of training, only 5,000 were commissioned as officers by the time the camps were discontinued in 1940.
See the Charles William Burdick Family papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more.