“Derb—The rest of the ‘battle hardened’ post was fine, but US Army

historian S.L.A. Marshall was misrepresented. He found that only

fifteen-to-twenty-five percent of riflemen take aimed shots at the enemy –

not simply in their FIRST firefight; EVER. Most casualties are and always

have been inflicted by a small minority of soldiers who, while not

necessarilly braver or otherwise more fit than their comrades, are capable

of deliberate killing (not ‘pointing in the general direction and squeezing

the trigger’.) Col. Grossman, US Army Special Forces and a psychology prof,

wrote a book called ‘On Killing’ which explores this issue in greater

detail. The Krauts had comparable numbers of ’shooters’; figures are also

comparable across history, though I suspect higher in less modern societies

where killing animals for food was more personally accomplished. Have a

fine afternoon.”

Thank you, Sir. I am indeed going to have a fine afternoon this sunny day,

watching the late events in my boy’s Field Day — culminating in the tug of

war.

Before heading out, though, just a note on that adjective “battle-hardened.”

It reminds me of one of the old “Beachcomber” columns in the London Daily Express. “Beachcomber” (real name J.B. Morton) wrote a satirical column

populated entirely by fantasy people out of his own imagination, rather like

the later “Peter Simple” column in the Daily Telegraph. One of these

imaginary people was a choleric old retired military man. In one column,

this old soldier wrote in: “Dear Sir, I must protest at your recent

description of me as ‘battle-scared.’ Surely this is a misprint. I should

be grateful if you would publish a correction.” Beachcomber obliged, noting

that the term he had intended to use was “bottle-scarred”…