The Truth about Killing

[goalie]

A book that hit home with me was written by a physician in the British army in WWI, Lord Moran. The book is called The Anatomy of Courage. I am relieved (in a way) to hear that the percentage went way up by 'nam, as I was wondering as I read this thread if my fellow Marines and I were all psychopaths. I don't think we were.

 

[c_yeager]

Remember also that a lot of the soldiers on both sides of WWII were conscripts, people who didnt volunteer for combat. Among an all volunteer army (like we have now) those numbers get much higher even without taking into account better training.

 

[Apple a Day]

I am suspicious about some of the evidence.
The 23 rounds in the guy's gun at Ghettysburg: take a bunch of guys firing volleys. Everyone is spewing smoke and flame. Take a kid, hand him a muzzleloader. The kid does what he is trained to do- load and pull the trigger. The muzzleloader doesn't go off (not unusual with a dirty muzzleloader using old-type poder) but with all the chaos the kid doesn't notice, keeps loading and pulling the trigger. I wonder how many guys have run empty in combat and kept pulling the trigger for a while before realizing they needed to reload.
As for the 2% of soldiers who actually do the killing, take into account the sheer number of people in the military. Take out the cooks, mechanics, HQ staff, supply... and what percentage actually carry a rifle into the bush?
I'm gonna go get a copy.

 

[Orion]

The very first time we took fire and attempted to kill the offending shrubbery my rifle wouldn't fire.

I of course performed SPORTS not once but twice before I realised that I had the safety engaged.

 

[jfh]

you guys have gotten me interested, too

I'm gonna pick up both Grossman's and Gilbert's books.

For those of you who have read Grossman, would you care to elaborate about his Freudian psychology.

My own background includes undergrad psych, grad level psych and ed psych, and grad level counselling psych and ed psych. I wonder and wander through the psych thicket of theory more than a bit, in other words--so I'm curious what you meant.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

The Grossman book is well worth the read... I'd also note that while some have disputed SLA Marshall's 2% figure, there are several other historical studies out there that show strong evidence in support of Marshall's theory.

Grossman's book goes into several of those and lists the evidence in support of the fact that a small number of people did most of the killing in WWII and prior wars. It isn't all based on Marshall...

 

[fix]

A small percentage of troops will do most of the killing in any conflict, particularly nowadays. There are a ton of support people behind every trigger puller. I suspect that the numbers will go up considerably if the study focused on "trigger pullers" rather than "troops."

 

[Raistlin]

Bruce Catton's books about the Civil War address the non-fired muskets - as Apple A Day said, often times the musket would not fire or misfire, but in the smoke and noise of battle (remember, the troops tended to yell a lot, not to mention all the guns and cannon that do go off), the soldier would be unaware of a malfunction, and reload the next round, etc., etc.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

A small percentage of troops will do most of the killing in any conflict, particularly nowadays.

Fix, the studies mentioned didn't involved support troops. A few of the ones mentioned were Army Air Corps studies of fighter pilot effectiveness in WWII, studies of tank effectiveness, and historical research showing that with the weapons and skills available, casualties should have been tremendously higher than what the historical record indicates. You really ought to read the book; but it doesn't rest its thesis on just one or two studies...

 

[Iain]

Back again guys, was busy there for a bit.

Some good points here. I believe that Marshall claimed to have focussed directly on 'front line soldiers' in his research. Can someone who has read Grossman corroborate this? (My copy is going to take about two weeks from amazon) Even so there would probably be a number for troops who were theoretically front line who may have not seen the enemy close in.

Orion, thanks for your post. I hope no-one read military bashing or any implication that all combat vets are sociopaths into my posts. I posted here because there are a number of vets around here, my thanks to them.

edit - while I was writing this Bartholomew Roberts did as I asked, before I asked. Ta.

 

[adobewalls]

On a small group of soldiers doing the killing:

I don't remember if it was in this book or another I read (I read this book in the 90's), but an example was cited during the civil war of a chain of men laying prone and passing loaded rifles up to a "shooter" and passing the empty rifles back to be reloaded. The observation was to the effect that many men had no problem being at war and supporting their units orders, but not every man was comfortable being a trigger man. I also remember Grossman citing examples of men firing their weapons with NO intent to hit their target (whether this was a deliberate act, the lack of training or a subconscious defense mechanism is a subject the book addresses.)

Also, remember Grossman is talking about taking deliberate aim with intent to strike a particular man dead - not raking the fire zone ahead with suppressive fire that "accidently" kills a combatant.

On Freud:

Grossman draws a number of comparisons between killing and sex and the mythos surrounding each. for example the first section of his book is titled, "Killing and the Existance of Resistance: A World of Virgins Studying Sex." My personal opinion of the book is that it is a good study of the subject. I discount the Freudian comparisons - but those do not get in the way of his presentation of this subject.


edited to add this quote which indicates this subject is not a newly observed phenomena:
Of every One-Hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there,
Eighty are nothing but targets,
Nine are real fighters...
We are lucky to have them...They make the battle.
Ah, but the One, One of them is a Warrior...
and He will bring the others back.
- Hericletus (circa 500 B.C.)

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

My friends dad killed someone (could be more, but he just says yes when we ask him if he killed anyone) in Vietnam, and he said he was only able to physically aim and shoot to kill after he saw his best friend get killed, but that was all he needed.

But he also says every combat soldier he ever met in his battalion killed or at least shot someone. Hell, he wasn't "infantry" himself, but a combat engineer. He was there during Tet, so the numbers there could be different from another part of the conflict or even other wars.

 

[Trebor]

Some good points here. I believe that Marshall claimed to have focussed directly on 'front line soldiers' in his research.

Yes, Marshall claimed to have interviewed combat vets for his research. Unfortunately, he never actually conducted the research he said he did and his results have been discredited.

If Grossman is basis his thesis on Marshall's work, than the validity of Grossman's work is also questionable.

 

[Cosmoline]

The reports at the core of the notion that most GI's never shot are HIGHLY SUSPECT. They were not based on good science, and are in all liklihood totally wrong. It is true that most GI's in WWII and Korea never saw front line combat or any combat at all. Even those that did MAY NEVER HAVE HAD A CLEAR SHOT. The Civil War was long over, and in almost all cases our troops were facing clever, dug-in foes who rarely presented viable targets for small arms fire. The statistics DO NOT SHOW that most GI's with a VIABLE TARGET on the FRONT LINE failed to fire or crapped their pants. It's bogus, and it's led to a lot of shoddy thinking in the military. The notion is that most people simply can't pull the trigger on another person, for example. This is nonsense, as hundreds of thousands of people with no military experience whatsoever have shown by killing other humans. Believe me if the life of your buddy is on the line you'll kill. We're humans, we didn't get to the top of the chain through harsh language.

Also, tens of millions didn't die in WWI and WWII because cowards on both sides capped off rounds into the air in some sort of absurd ape display of territorial dominance. THEY SLAUGHTERED EACH OTHER BY THE MILLIONS! The numbers don't lie, and they completely disprove the reports underlying this particularly disgusting urban legend.

 

[Cosmoline]

"At Gettysburg, the programme claims, of the 1,000's of weapons collected at the end of the battle many were loaded. "

So it WASH harsh language that killed over 30,000 men that day! I always knew it. The folks who came up with this "programme" have a clear bias and a lack of tactical knowledge. Gettysburg was fought by lines of battle, and parts of both lines saw little or no action. Moreover, with single shot muzzle-loaders soldiers (esp. by 1893) knew damn well to wait for good shots. Sometimes a soldier's chance didn't come before someone else got the soldier. Indeed statistically if most soldiers are waiting for a kill shot most of the time, you would expect most dead soldiers to have loaded rifle muskets. If soliders are blindly loading and firing into the air in some primal display you'd expect most soldiers to have EMPTY rifle muskets. So in fact this evidence tends to show the programme's producers are full of bravo sierra.

 

[fourdeuce82d]

Couple of disclaimers-

1) I have never been (and hope to never be) in a situation where my life depends on my ability to shoot someone.

2) I read grossman's book, and exchanged email with him, but it was quite a while ago.

with that said, I don't think much of his overall thesis.

First, SLA marshall's studies have, as others have mentioned, come under criticism...either Sheehan, in "Bright and Shining Lie" or hackworth in "about face" (sorry, don't have them handy to check) mention SLA Marshall coming out to the field, taking a couple of notes, and wandering off to write an update to his study. As others have noted, one thing he apparently did not control for was the degree to which individual soldiers could SEE the enemy- if fifty percent of the troops didn't fire, was it because they didn't want to, or because theyr were in defilade?

Secondly, some of his examples are bogus- the battle of rourke's drift, for example, where he describes brit soldiers holding their rifles out in front of them, as opposed to getting a good shoulder mount. he claims it's because the troops didn't want to hit...but the book "like lions they fought" specifically mentions that the troop's shoulders were beating to a pulp by extended firing of the martini .577 rifle they were issued.

Another bogus example is the kid who used a Ruger Mk II to kill several other kids at a prayer meeting. Grossman contrasts his hit ratio to that of veteran police officers, and concludes the kid was conditioned and trained to shoot that well. Bull. leaving aside whether video games condition kids to kill, walking up and shooting unarmed high school kid with a .22 is a lot different than exchanging fire with someone trying to kill you.

He may be on to something in a general way, and I certainly can't claim that I would be a super hero if the SHTF, but it seemed to me many of his examples didn't prove his thesis.

 

[cdbeaver]

If truth be known, more combatants were killed or wounded by the artillery man who pulled the lanyard on a 105 or 155 . . . and the guy probably never knew he was a killer!

Then we have the Air Force crews who flew over cities and dropped the bombs that obliterated literally thousands of civilians--women, babies, old people--and never really gave a thought to the carnage they had wrought. Though, I suspect, many an air crewman had difficulty in sleeping when he returned to his base.

The infantry soldier is the guy who had to look face-to-face with the enemy and consciously pull the trigger on his rifle to take another's life. In my experience, the average GI fought, not for his country, not for God, not for the family back home . . . but for the buddy beside him. He certainly did not want his comrades to think him a coward.

 

[another okie]

I would like to know what the sources are for saying S.L.A. Marshall's work has been discredited. I'm not disputing that they have been, but before I write them off I would like to know who says so and why. The sources mentioned in a post above:

"Sheehan, in "Bright and Shining Lie" or hackworth in "about face"

deal with Vietnam and Korea. Marshall's book is about WW II. I've read "About Face" and I seem to recall some mention of Marshall in it, but nothing that would discredit his WW II research.

 

[Trebor]

I would like to know what the sources are for saying S.L.A. Marshall's work has been discredited. I'm not disputing that they have been, but before I write them off I would like to know who says so and why. The sources mentioned in a post above:

There was another historian who reviewed Marshall's work "Men Against Fire" about 10 years ago (give or take). He published his results in one of the scholarly journals. I don't have a copy of the original article, but I've seen several references to it. I don't remember his name, but I'll see if I can track it down.

 

[itgoesboom]

This is really intresting.

I fortunatly, have never had to kill another man.

However, I almost did, so I know how my response is.

I was in a fist fight, and it looked like the other person was trying to reach a couple of tools that could be used as weapons, and I decided at that point that one of us was going to die.

I spent the rest of the fight trying my hardest to kill him, and came very close to breaking his neck. I took a lot of hits, but never felt them, and never felt fear after the initial realization. I was just very focused on not letting him get to the hatchet that was on the ground.

Fortunatly for me, there were plenty of other people around, and they stopped the fight when it got too far out of hand.

Had the other person not been trying to cause me grave physical harm, maybe even kill me, than there is no way that I would have tried to kill him, but when you think you are going to die, things change very quickly.

I.G.B.

 

[Ryder]

'It requires forceful thought to kill another.'

It takes forceful thought to kill ANYTHING on purpose. Some people have thought they would like to try hunting only to find out they couldn't force themselves to kill the animal when the time came. Do you even thoughtlessly kill a mosquito? I myself am quite purposeful killing those rotten little bloodsuckers!

I've killed and butchered many an animal over the years. It's never bothered me in the least. The key as I see it is in mental justification. I don't see anybody having nightmares when they buy a hamburger, a box of cereal, or a loaf of bread even though animals died to provide those commodities. In much the same way killing animals in the woods is no different to me than walking through a supermarket pushing a shopping cart. This killing is licensed and acceptable behaviour. I actually enjoy it.

Now then, deadly force against a threat to my life is licensed and supposedly acceptable behaviour too yet I remain reluctant to kill. BTDT. So what gives? I know exactly what gives for me, there is absolutely no doubt about it... I couldn't care less for a bad guy's welfare. What I do care about is my welfare and I know better than to allow society the opportunity to judge me. That could end up being a very large regret and I fear such a thing no less than death at the hands of a criminal.

 

[Harold Mayo]

Cosmoline:

I don't want to defend Grossman beyond saying that his stuff is interesting but I must respond to your allegation that "The folks who came up with this "programme" have a clear bias and a lack of tactical knowledge." Your words. Read a little about Grossman before saying that. The guy is a retired Ranger officer who, iirc, started out as an enlisted man. He served in the 82nd, taught at West Point, taught military science at another university. He backs what he says on many sources, not just one or a few. Furthermore, the guy practically lives on the road lecturing in the US and abroad on his subject to military and LE personnel.

This is not to say that he's right, but he has a little more experience and knowledge on the subject than you seem to give him credit for...

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

First, I would recommend that everyone criticizing the book, read it. You may not agree with it; but it is an interesting and thought-provoking read regardless and he does address many of the counters being offered in this thread.

leaving aside whether video games condition kids to kill, walking up and shooting unarmed high school kid with a .22 is a lot different than exchanging fire with someone trying to kill you.

This is my big problem with Grossman's work. He attributes the low casualty rates in combat to a reluctance to kill; but I think there is at least an equally good chance that it is simply a lot more difficult to shoot someone when they are shooting back and that this factor could account for many of the discrepancies he notes and I didn't notice anywhere in his thesis where he tried to control for this or explain why this wasn't relevant (at least not in "On Killing" - he has done some other work with Bruce Siddle on this subject but I haven't read it yet)

 

[Viking6]

When GEN Sullivan was Major General Sullivan and Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas around 88-89, he had the Army Historian as a visitor (cannot recall his name, though I met him again in Germany in 94). I was a captain at the time and GEN Sullivan invited any history majors to have dinner with him and the historian at the officer's club. several of us, around 9 or 10, ate and discussed the historians recent trip to the Soviet Union and his access to some of their "Great Patriotic War" archives. The subject of SLA Marshall's "research" came up. The historian said (this is not a direct quote but accurate representation) that SLAM fudged some numbers. An author discovered this by the sheer logisitical impossibility of him being able to cover the time and space and people to do the interviews. He also mentioned that SLAM's widow was pissed at his debunker because Mrs. SLAM had been basking in his glory and most wives or husbands would try to maintain the good name of their deceased spouse. That's what I know about that.
As for killing, I read an article in Parameters around 81 called "Killers, Fillers and Fodder" that stated that about 10% of fighters account for 90% of the kills, another 70 0r 80% account for the rest and 20 to 30% of a unit kinda fill out the organization and often become the casualties. They based the study on Creighton Abrams' 37th Armor in WWII, the Israeli Tank Corps in the Yom Kippur War (or maybe the 67 War) and whichever (8th?) Air Force that fought over Europe in WWII.

 

[fix]

He also mentioned that SLAM's widow was pissed at his debunker because Mrs. SLAM had been basking in his glory and most wives or husbands would try to maintain the good name of their deceased spouse.

Kinda like the wife of Dr. (no artery left unclogged) Atkins, it becomes much harder to debunk such things once the author is deceased.