National Ski Patrol

The National Ski Patrol appears as a civilian network helping recruit skiers for the Army’s mountain troops. Through its local chairman, Willard Anderson, it reaches Ben Givens with an appeal that turns his experience in the high country into a reason to enlist, linking a recreational skill and community affiliation to wartime service.

Identity and Role

The evidence identifies the National Ski Patrol as an organization assisting with recruitment for the 10th Mountain Division. Willard Anderson, president of the Leavenworth Ski Club and the Patrol’s local chairman, writes to Ben in May. The novel does not detail the Patrol’s broader structure or operations; its stated role here is specific: helping the Army find men of fighting age who are enthusiastic about mountain country and skiing.

The Recruitment Appeal

Anderson remembers Ben from the time he passed on the jump at Ski Hill. He explains that the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment was activated at Fort Lewis the day after The attack on Pearl Harbor, had trained on the slopes of Mt. Rainier, and was followed by the 10th Mountain Division, which is now recruiting. The Patrol’s local chairmanship gives Anderson a channel to approach potential recruits directly, and his letter frames joining as an honor and privilege in a moment of dire need.

Significance to Ben

Anderson sets enlistment in the mountain troops against the alternative of going wherever the draft sends Ben. The letter asks whether it would be preferable to take matters into his own hands and “meet the war on your own terms, and wearing skis as well?” The appeal makes skiing more than a personal qualification: it offers Ben a measure of choice within the prospect of military service. His father says that if Ben must go, he may as well go as a mountain trooper, even as he confesses that he wishes Ben could stay because he needs him. The Patrol’s recruiting role thus reaches into a family decision, though the evidence presents the organization through this letter rather than through any further account of its activities.