On Combat

Clausewitz’s elements of friction: danger, chance, uncertainty, and exertion are the biggest elements that separate war from everything else. Our discussion focused on danger, the emotions it generates, and the impact this has on how we think and act. We then addressed the effect of prolonged exposure to combat stressors, and touched briefly on some of the appeals of battle.

When you read war narratives, you are likely to examine the experiences of warriors through the lenses fashioned by some of our course concepts. The experiences of a young Marine in the Pacific are recorded in E.B. Sledge’s memoir With the Old Breed:

Anticipation of battle/heightened intensity of emotion in battle (D-Day at Pelelieu): ‘Everything my life had been before and has been after pales in the light of that awesome moment when my AMTRAC started in amid a thunderous bombardment toward the flaming, smoke shrouded beach.’ 52

Physical environment of battle: after a Marine slips and falls down a muddy slope, he is covered by maggots climbing all over the dead. ‘We didn’t talk about such things. They were too horrible and obscene even for hardened veterans. The conditions taxed the toughest I knew almost to the point of screaming. Nor do authors normally write about such vileness; unless they have seen it with their own eyes, it is too preposterous to think that men could actually live and fight for days and nights on end under such terrible conditions and not be driven insane. But I saw much of it there on Okinawa and to me the war was insanity.’ 260

Prolonged erosion of character to cumulative combat stress: Combat fatigue ranged from dull detachment, to sobbing, to screaming. ‘Stress was the essential factor we had to cope with in combat, under small-arms fire, and in warding off infiltrators and raiders during sleepless, rainy nights for prolonged periods; but being shelled seemed to increase the strain beyond which stable and hardened marines could endure’. 265

Strength of character in moral survival: Amidst many horrors on Okinawa Sledge pledged ‘the Japanese might kill or wound me, but they wouldn’t make me crack up. My secret resolve helped me through the long days and nights. We remained in the depths of the abyss. But there were times at night during that period that I felt I was slipping’. 257