Was S.L.A Marshall Full Of B.S.?

[Vern Humphrey]

The guy could be loading on top of a dry charge, i.e., no powder in the first loading, and thinking the gun is going off due to the noise and confusion of the battle.

That's exactly what happened. This is an example of "perceptual narrowing" or "tunnel vision." Under great stress, people tend to focus intensely on one thing and keep doing it long after a disinterested observer would see it was not appropriate.

In this case, the soldier focussed on the act of loading, but omitted the cap. And he kept doing the same thing over and over. His perceptions were so narrow that it never registered there was no recoil, no smoke, and so on.

And, as I said, this is evidence that soldiers, even under the greatest stress, will try to fire. And there's plenty of other evidence -- we can look at supply records and ask, "If no one's shooting, who the h*ll is burning up all that ammo?"

 

[Thin Black Line]

I know the issue at hand is potential BS stats from previous studies --the
quantitative data itself. But I do like Grossman's interpretations of his own
qualitative interviews.

Many shooters stay shooters across time in combat situations. This is true
of individuals and groups, but not all individuals and groups at all times.

The other possibility that comes up is that shooters wake up one day with a
different perspective on life and the world and....don't shoot that day. Surely,
some of you know people who had days like that? I knew them.

 

[spwenger]

Yet, According to Grossman...

In this case, the soldier focussed on the act of loading, but omitted the cap. And he kept doing the same thing over and over. His perceptions were so narrow that it never registered there was no recoil, no smoke, and so on.

...these muskets or rifles with multiple unfired charges are evidence of man's innate disinclination to kill his fellow man.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

...these muskets or rifles with multiple unfired charges are evidence of man's innate disinclination to kill his fellow man.

Damn' few men who have been in actual combat would agree with that.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Vern, so what is it then? Give us a qualitative explanation based on your
modern experiences.

 

[benEzra]

...these muskets or rifles with multiple unfired charges are evidence of man's innate disinclination to kill his fellow man.

I'd say they're evidence of the human tendency to revert to one's level of training when under extreme stress. Live-fire training of Civil War troops was hasty, halfhearted, and haphazard, AFAIK. Many conscripts on both sides had prior experience with firearms, but there were also many (particularly on the more urban-based Union side) that had never touched a gun prior to their service.

Take a person who has never handled a gun before, give him some curt instructions on how to load and fire a muzzleloader, and put him in a life-threatening situation with bullets whizzing all around him and powder smoke so think he can't even see where the shots are coming from, and he will start making mistakes. He may also start second-guessing himself as to whether he actually loaded the gun, and load it again.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Yep. Grossman is wrong -- the survival instinct has not been bred or conditioned out of us. You don't have to condition men to kill when the chips are down -- but you do have to train them to do it efficiently.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Vern, so what is it then? Give us a qualitative explanation based on your modern experiences.

During the Remagen Operations near Khe Sahn in '69, my company (A-1/61 Infantry) killed about 600 NVA in three nights of fighting.

 

[spwenger]

And Another Thing about Grossman...

In On Killing, Grossman lists telescopic sights as one of the "distancing" factors that facilitates pressing the trigger when the target is human. I have challenged him on this, personally. Everyone with whom I have spoken who has shot humans with scoped rifles has told me that it is a more demanding experience than doing so with open sights as such a shooter can often see the face of his unaware target. When challenged, Grossman's response was that the shooters he had interviewed were split as to whether or not the use of a scope made the shooting easier or harder, emotionally.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Grossman states that he has "an advanced degree in psychology," giving most folks the impression that he has a Ph.D.

For those of us who do hold advanced degrees, this statement waves a little red flag. If you dig down two levels on Grossman's website, the most advanced degree he lists is M.Ed., Counseling Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, TX, Phi Kappa Phi, Kappa Delta Pi, 1990.

FWIW:

There are a whole bunch of different degrees that are considered part of the psychology family:

Masters, PhD in psychology (Traditional Psychologists)
M.D. (Psychiatrists)
Psy D. (New school Psychologists)
Ed. D. (Educational psych usually gets this degree, rather than the others)

A master's in Ed is stretching it a bit, but probably valid if obtained in the context of educational psych, which is probably what his "counseling psych" tag is about.

As with all research, I'm never impressed with the number of stripes on the researcher's sleeve, and always concerned with the quality of the research itself.

In this case, it seems he has few stripes, and dubious research.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Grossman's response was that the shooters he had interviewed were split as to whether or not the use of a scope made the shooting easier or harder, emotionally.

Ask Grossman if he will make his database public, so it can be properly peer-reviewed.

 

[Checkman]

No combat experience. 14 years as a peacetime soldier(1986-2000). Eight years on active duty.Well at least I was never deployed to a combat zone.

I've been a cop for almost 7.5 years and I've experienced my share of fights. No I haven't shot anyone. My experience is that violence is fast, explosive and dosen't last for long. It isn't very fun or pleasent, but so far I've walked away because I'm agressive when a suspect decides to be a NO PERSON. I will go home.

I don't have a record for fights like some. Much better to talk and explain the consequences of being a no person. Like I said violence is not enjoyable.

I've also noticed that some officers are more tuned in to a situation and act quickly while others are slower. Don't know what that means. I only have a B.A. in Liberal Arts (history). Which is why I'm a cop.

I'm wary of folks who excell at blowing their horn excessively. Many LEOs think Grossman is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah. Well consider him a toolbox. Take what you need, but do you really need to cart the whole damm thing around with you?

 

[Thin Black Line]

How about we add the topic of "Search and Avoid" into this discussion?

 

[Checkman]

Thin Black Line

How about we add the topic of "Search and Avoid" into this discussion?

I'm dense. I don't understand exactly what you mean. Could you clarify please?

 

[Fred Fuller]

The brass called the missions 'search and destroy.' Sometimes the troops ran them as 'search and avoid' though, as in avoiding contact with the enemy. It still goes on, there was some uproar late last year about the use of the term in Iraq.

lpl/nc
====
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/guerrillawars/hackworthtranscript.html

(snip)
Q: Would it surprise you to know that the chief concierge at the Continental Hotel, Saigon's top hotel, was in fact working for the Vietcong?

Hackworth: It wouldn't be surprise me. At Tet of '68, the secretary to the commanding general of U.S. Forces Vietnam, General Westmoreland, was found holding an AK-47. With the whole Vietnamese apparatus, I never once trusted a Vietnamese. I never trusted a Vietnamese general. I never allowed a Vietnamese inside my camp, my firebase. If I were going to meet a Vietnamese colonel, I would meet him outside my firebase, because I didn't trust him. I assumed everybody was a Vietcong.

Q: And these are the people you were meant to be fighting for...

Hackworth: That's right, and that was the attitude. My soldiers from the 9th Division hated the South Vietnamese soldiers more than they did the Vietcong. They saw them going out on operations and not meeting the enemy, but avoiding the enemy. They called it 'search and avoid,' where it was supposed to be 'search and destroy.' My battalion could go all the way through that same area and come back bloodied and battered. That really got to my guys. (snip)

 

[Thin Black Line]

Bingo. And, yes, happens now, too.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Hackworth: That's right, and that was the attitude.

I never met Hackworth during the Viet Nam War, but I attended the Infantry Officer's Advanced Course with several officers who had served with him -- and they had a low opinion of him.

Later on, when he came back from Australia and was writing a newspaper column, a friend of mine contacted him about some egregious error he had made, and Hackworth's excuse was he "didn't have time" to check facts.

We started emailing him regularly about his errors after that -- some of them so bad they set your teeth on edge, such as his comments about his "M1918 machinegun squad," and his ideas about mines.

 

[Checkman]

Got it. Thanks.

 

[spwenger]

Hackworth and Criticism

I once e-mailed Hackworth about something he wrote comparing the rate of awards of Medals of Honor in various wars. I pointed out that it was not accurate to make comparisons with the War Between the States and later wars because the Medal of Honor was the only award for valor during most of that war, as opposed to the highest award for valor, among several others, in later wars. I received a very nasty response, which led me to conclude that honest evaluation of criticism was not one of his strong points.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

That's one way to put it.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Too bad Hackworth isn't alive to defend himself on THR....I wonder what the
man's record might imply about him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Hackworth#Military_decorations

Well, later all, gotta travel.

 

[BigG]

Hackworth and Criticism
I once e-mailed Hackworth (or insert writer's name here) about something ...

Guys, this is no reflection on any of yours' intelligence but what do you expect when these guys get paid* to write something, they produce something controversial and interesting, whether it happened or not. Do you honestly see anything different in your local newspapers? They produce what will sell. This is now the entertainment business. If it was ever the truth business to begin with, I do not honestly know.

*This would also go for youniversity diplomas, or positions, which are also a form of payment.

 

[Timarg]

Why was Marshall ever taken seriously

The more I have read about SLAM the more I think he might have been, perhaps subconsciously, projecting his own failures or inadequacies onto the broadest possible number of soldiers through his 'research.' If you're a coward or a marginal soldier yourself, it probably helps to feel you are in the majority.

I think you hit the nail right on the head; he didn't want to feel like he was one of the few. I have a hard time believing that Marshall was ever taken seriously and that the military used only his analysis and didn't bother to see what others had to say about the subject. I'm amazed it took until the mid 80's for anyone to seriously question his assertions. I'm even more amazed that many of the WWII veterans didn't denounce him outright.

During WWII if a soldier in the German or Soviet armies won't fire his weapon he would have been shot immediately for cowardice if for no other reason as a lesson to the others. In the American military he would have been court marshaled for cowardice in the face of the enemy and no one would want someone in his outfit that wouldn't fight at all. They would see them as someone who would get them killed.

Yes there a great deal of reluctance on the part of most people to kill and many did their best to avoid combat, but I dare say that once in combat few refused to fire their weapon especially when advancing on the enemy or being shot at. There were some who cowered and become too scared to fire but not because they were worried they would hurt anyone as Marshall claimed. Some did become trigger happy and others got to the point where they hated holding a gun, but for the most part nearly all of them will say they did what they had to do.

One way to settle the argument would be to find more than a few who served in combat (and not at a desk behind the lines) who was one of those who won't to fire at the enemy or was in a unit that had more than a few won't fire their weapon. Let me know when you find a unit in which 75% won't shoot at the enemy. BTW they would know with great certainty who these persons were if by no other means by the amount of ammo they went through or rather didn't go through. In some outfits guys like that would have at the very least gotten s... beat out of them.

Yes, in Vietnam and even Iraq there were reports of whole units avoiding engagement with the enemy but I don't of know any where once engaged soldiers or marines refused to fire at the enemy especially because they didn't want to hurt anyone. As someone cited the firing rate was 95% in Vietnam and that was in a war in which many didn't know what they were fighting for and were there against their will. Compare that to WWII when it was quite clear why they were fighting and many of them volunteered. And I seriously doubt that the high percentage was a result of better training because of Marshall's claims. It doesn't prove his claims it strongly disproves his claims. I also seriously doubt that during WWII 100% of the killing was done by only 25% or less of those in a front-line combat unit with as many as 75% refusing to shoot.

There's a big difference between reluctance to kill and refusing to kill. Many in combat were reluctant but it didn't stop them from doing it when necessary. For Marshall to be correct we would have to rewrite nearly all the history books and remake every WWII movie since none that I've ever read or seen depicts only a few doing the fighting while the rest refuse to.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

SLA Marshall has been dissected by modern researchers:

1. His field notes are in the Military History Collection at Carlisle Barracks, PA. They do not support his supposed "findings."

2. Men who accompanied him and were present during his inteviews say he did not ask or discuss the issues that later appear in Men Against Fire.

3. His story changes over time. Right after the war, he claimed to have interviewed 400 companies in depth. A few years later, it was 600. Since the war was over, where did the additional companies come from?

4. It is possible to reconstruct a questionnaire from his book -- questions he would have had to ask to get the data he presented. When you multiply the pages in the questionnaire by the number of people in an average company by the number he claimed to have interviewed, you get about 120,000 pages -- or the equivallent to 300 average size novels. Yet there's no record of him shipping so much paper anywhere. Nor has it ever been found.

5. In the era before desktop computers, tabulating and analyzing all that paper would have been a huge job -- yet the people who did that work have never been found either.

Clearly, Marshall was a fraud -- and in fact, he was trapped in many lies in his career, including his claim to be the youngest lieutenant in WWI -- a lie he told several times.

Despite this, Marshall's work fascinated scholars who were not aware of the fraudlent nature of his "work." Marshall had numbers -- and that made it look imposing. And right after it was published, came the Korean War. The Army was woefully unready for that war, and battlefield performance was poor. Marshall seemed to give the answers. The Army went looking for "natural fighters," indulged in lots of psychological mumbo-jumbo, and changed its marksmanship training, all based on Marshall's hoax.

 

[JR47]

So far, the only actual example given of "search and avoid" has been the ARVN forces of 40 years ago.

It was also Hackworth who predicted heavy casualties for Americans fighting against Saddam's Army in Kuwait, and the upcoming "poor performance" of the M1A1 Abrams tanks against the Soviet T-72. Or did everyone miss that issue of Newsweek and Time, or the TV coverage?

SLA Marshall's research, and his conclusions, were seized upon by a group in the military, as, along with the German Infantry Studies, a means of documenting a particular way of war-fighting's deficiencies. That the results of the work done by both were actually not directly applicable to the military of the United States has been lost in the mists of inertia inherent in a large military.

I would also like to see some source that quotes the 95% figure for Vietnam. There were many areas of Vietnam in which VC activity was always very limited. The troops there saw little action, and were mainly support types. Of the men in combat areas, the 95%, during a tour, might apply.