This belt is 38 inches long. The leather is pliable, but the side corners are stiff. This piece was displayed in The Battlefield Military Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania until it’s recent closing.
Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC) were United States government authorized military training programs held annually each summer during the years 1921 to 1940. CMTC camps differed fromNational Guard and Organized Reserve training in that the program allowed young male citizens age 17-24 to obtain basic military training without incurring an obligation to be called up for active duty. The CMTC were authorized by the National Defense Act of 1920 as part of a compromise that rejected universal military training. The young men received transportation, food, quarters, uniforms and equipment completely free. In its nearly two decades of operation, the CMTC trained some 400,000 men in at least one season from 1921 to 1940. Overall the program was disappointing, as only 5,000 officer commissions were awarded to men who completed the required four summers of training.
Before the United States entered World War I, private citizens of the Preparedness Movement set up what were known as the "Plattsburg camps" to build a reserve of qualified men. These provided at least one summer of training in 1915 and 1916 to some 40,000 men, who were all college graduates and largely drawn from elite social classes.
