On Combat

Clausewitz defined war as a trinity of violence in pursuit of a political purpose, affected by chance.

The possibility of death or injury from violent action is a powerful element of battlefield realities WWII soldier and author James Jones (From Here to Eternity, and The Thin Red line, among others) wrote that soldiers had to give up hope of individual survival to carry on the mission, and that they had to have faith the unit would carry on:

“It is the individual soldier’s final full acceptance of the fact that his name is already written down in the rolls of the already dead,” wrote Jones, that allows the soldier to function well under fire (WWII, p. 54).

Through the character Private Bell, Jones writes: “Some men would survive, but no one individual man could survive. It was a discrepancy in methods of counting. The whole thing was too vast, too complicated, too technological for any one individual man to count in it. Only collections of men counted, only communities of men, only numbers of men” (Thin Red Line, p. 238).

Whether one lived or died, was not an outcome the individual had control of. The realization that survival is a matter of chance does not come easily to the warrior:

“In spite of all the training you get and precautions you take to keep yourself alive, it’s largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed. It doesn’t make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time, you get it. . . . It’s all luck” (James Jones to Jeff Jones, 28 January 1943, To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones, ed. 26-27.)

Should soldiers resign themselves to the possibility of death before entering battle? This is not unknown from the distant or recent past. Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, USMC exhorted his men forward at Belleau Wood (June 1918) with: “Come on, you sons of bitches-do you want to live forever?” Interestingly, one might take this in more than one way, a reminder that one can’t live forever and death is not to be feared, or perhaps that to advance is the path to immortality (as it was for Daly, who had already earned two Medals of honor and survived the war.

Some commanders in Operation Iraqi Freedom I (the initial assault to Baghdad) advised their men to make peace with God, resign their fate to fight with a “happy heart” [discussions at the National War College, November 2004]. This attitude is captured in Lt Col Brian McCoy’s Passion of Command, in the words he used to prepare his Marines for the assault into Iraq:

We will take casualties in combat; men will die. Accept that as fact now and resolve to stay above the emotion and remain focused on the mission. Do not allow casualties to slow our speed. The best way to take care of our wounded is to finish the enemy off.

Dedicate yourself to the unit and mission. Trust in your brothers. Make peace with your maker, then fight with a “happy heart.”

This is a tough psychological prescription, pressing ahead while resigning oneself to the possibility of death. To appreciate the possibility of death or grievous injury and to press on in spite of them is the essence of courage.

Jones quotations from Sharon Ritenour Stevens George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Virginia