Matthew Temkin
Member
http://www.newsweek.com/id/7699Fire...the war) and he just snorted and said, "B.S."
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The sense I get is that he used material selectively to support his own theories. Kind of like most journalism today.
I have also read many combat accounts of both WWI and WWII and of other armies that support his conclusions.
US Army adopting operant conditioning, and after action analysis clearly showed that in Vietnam, more than 95% of all infantrymen engaged in combat.
Fudd - don't give up on uniformed military historians! The other historian who's initials are SM - Samuel Eliot Morison - wrote a fantastic history of the United States Naval Operations in WWII. Anyone who's serious about reading WWII history should read his works. His writing style is clear and charming.
...the "killology" psuedo-science of Grossman et al. to be highly questionable. It flies in the face not only of scientific method, but all that I've read of front line combat of my own experience with non-combat killings. I know people who have used deadly force, and none of them went through any special training. Nor did the vast majority of people who have taken human life, legally or otherwise. One fellow I know is a mild little 7th Day Adventist who won't even eat meat, but he pumped six slugs into a would be robber.
...I have read numerous of SLAM's writings, including (but no limited to) Men Against Fire, The Anvil Chorus, Bringing Up the Rear (his autobiography) and several of his "war stories" intended for the general public.I'm not a major cheerleader for SLAM but how many have exactly read what he says and how many are just basing their knowledge on what others have repeated?
Like the the civilian work environment where a small percentage of people actually do most of the work for a company, a very small percentage of
soldiers do most of the killing in combat.