HOW THE NATIONAL RESERVE HAS HELPED.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEN " SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—In view of your comments from time to time on the usefulness of the National Reserve, may I relate how it has enabled me to rejoin the Forces ? In the "eighties" I served for a few years in the ranks of the old Volunteer Force, but had to give it up all too soon because my civil employment made it impossible for me to devote the necessary time to it. Four or five years ago I attended a meeting of my fellow-employees to hear an address on the aims of the National Reserve, and at the close I gave in my name because, in the words of a companion, who also joined, " I could not help it." Having taken this step, I realized it was up to me to fit myself to use a rifle, and I took up miniature shooting, . and later on had some practice with the service rifle. I mot with some success in this, and at the N.R.A. meeting of 1914 won one of the Bisley Challenge Cups (and, by the way, I only entered for this because I was going to Bisley to shoot in the National Reserve competition, the only one in which I thought I stood the least chance). When the war broke out I was successful in obtaining admission to the N.R.A. Musketry Classes, qualified, and was appointed Staff-Sergeant.Imitructor of Musketry. At the end of a few months I was given a commission and appointed Brigade Musketry Instructor, and later was promoted to the rank of Captain. At the present moment I am acting as Divisional Musketry Officer. This bare recital of facts is not made for the sake of boasting, but merely to show that but for the National Reserve I should have been utterly unprepared and unable to give any efficient help in this crisis of our country's history ; whereas now, although over fifty years of age, and thus too old for more active service, I am able to take a useful part in the training of our new troops and have a much easier conscience than I should otherwise have had. I think these facts may be of interest as a proof of one of the various ways in which the National Reserve has [When the history of the National Reserve comes to be written, as surely it must, facts like these will, we trust, be duly recorded. We believe it is not too much to say that in the first three months of the war the National Reserve proved an invaluable national asset. —Ea. Spectator.]
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