close the (p. 216)
educational and training gap between black and white troops.[8-20]
Of course, there were other ways to close the gap, and on occasion the
Army had taken the more positive and difficult approach of upgrading
its substandard black troops by giving them extra training. Although
rarely so recognized, the Army's long record of providing remedial
academic and technical training easily qualified it as one of the
nation's major social engineers.

[Footnote 8-20: For the use of AR 315-369 to
discharge low-scoring soldiers, see Chapter 7.]

[Illustration: GENERAL HUEBNER _inspects the 529th Military Police
Company, Giessen, Germany, 1948_.]

In World War II thousands of draftees were taught to read and write in
the Army's literacy program. In 1946 at Fort Benning an on-duty
educational program was organized in the 25th Regimental Combat Team
for soldiers, in this case all Negroes, with less than an eighth grade
education. Although the project had to be curtailed because of a lack
of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was
launched the next year throughout the Army after a survey revealed an
alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. In a move of primary
importance to black recruits, the Far East Command, for example,
ordered all soldiers lacking the equivalent of a fifth grade education
to attend courses. The order was later changed to include all soldiers
who failed to achieve Army test scores of seventy.[8-21]

[Footnote 8-21: AFPAC Monograph, 4:193.]

In 1947 the European theater launched the most ambitious project by
far for improving the status of black troops, and before it was over
thousands of black soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained.
The project was conceived and executed by the deputy and later theater
commander, Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, and his adviser on Negro
affairs, Marcus Ray, now a lieutenant colonel.[8-22] These men were
convinced that a program could be devised to raise the status of the
black soldier. Huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a command-wide
educational program for all black units. "If you're going to make
soldiers out of people," he later explained, "they have the right to
be trained." Huebner had specialized in training in his Army career,
had written several of the Army's training manuals, and possessed an
abiding faith in the ability of the Army to change men.