a very small percentage of soldiers do most of the killing in combat.
True, because they're the most trained and experienced. And because they know how to survive. As far back as "All Quiet on the Western Front" soldiers were remarking how much different the survival rates were for those with a little front line experience and those with none. I see no evidence that they do most of the killing because everyone else is a shrinking violet.
I can't speak regarding WWI --I can only speak regarding my experience in
Iraq. Only a small percentage of soldiers leave the wire at any given time.
In fact, there are many soldiers who NEVER leave the wire. In some places
the guy driving the truckload of toilet paper catches more fire than the guy
in the Bradley. It can be safer on a foot patrol in a farming village than
driving down the road.
There are some FOBs where the same soldiers are sent out on missions over
and over again while others are held back. Yes, experience becomes a factor
in that choice but there are other considerations made by commanders.
Whatever reasons those might be still gives rise to a difference in perception
by those who go out vs those who don't and you get terms like "fobbit" in
the current war and "REMF" back in Vn. Names are irrelevant, what is relevant
is the fact that people who don't go out, have less of a chance of meeting
the enemy and actually testing themselves under fire. The soldiers who go
out do have more
opportunity for fighting. But, yes, you can go out and
not see anything or fire a weapon where someone 10 yards away has all sorts
of stuff going on. This is shown in monthly stats where the same companies
are taking the fire, producing dead enemy, but also taking their own WIA/KIA,
yet other companies in the same battalion aren't seeing squat.
There were combat medics who got more opportunities to shoot at the enemy
because they were exposing themselves to tend to people who were
wounded. Quite frankly I could be a block away from that same medic
outside the wire sitting in a humvee with a loaded weapon or sitting
under reinforced concrete inside the FOB with an empty weapon, but either
way I'm not firing my weapon. No shrinking violet, just no opportunity and
yes there are people who "chomp at the bit" for that opportunity. Maybe
they like the taste when they get it, but maybe they don't. Firing of weapons
when the opportunity presents itself again and again becomes another matter
entirely which we're not going to get into here in any short order. It goes
into that whole "psychology of killing" thing.
Again, I can't speak for the past. It'd be great from some of THR's Vn vets
to chime in on this topic. It would've been great to discuss this topic with
my grandfather who faught in the Battle of the Bulge, but he passed away
years ago. I suspect though, he would've cared less about it as his life
philosophy was something to the effect of "people will do what they need
to do." You would also find that people who did the most, talk the least
about what they did.
So what did the legions do who manned Hadrians Wall? How many of them
actually went north and fought? Probably depends on their place in a
particular time in history.