Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command Paperback – September 15, 2000

First published in 1947, S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire" argues that in spite of long-range nuclear weapons, the next war of nations will not be a push-button war. Rather, individuals engaging each other on the battlefield will again provide the mainstay of a total war even more destructive than World War II. Obviously, Marshall did not foresee the advent of limited wars in Korea and Vietnam just around the corner. Nevertheless, Marshall poses some thought provoking questions of Americans in combat. In a highly controversial claim based on questionable research, Marshall concludes that in World War II, only one-in-four soldiers fired his rifle in combat. Marshall claims to have "personally" conducted mass interviews with approximately 400 infantry companies in the Central Pacific and European Theaters immediately following important battles (If you are doing the Arithmetic, approx. 200 men per company x 400 companies, you're getting the idea!). Not one platoon, company, or battalion commander, argues Marshall, was aware that only twenty-five percent of soldiers engaged in combat fired their weapons. As a result of his findings, Marshall then campaigned for the need of new training methods for infantry soldiers. He stressed, this individual training should be based on long-term psychological camaraderie, not the quick turnover replacement system that was utilized during World War II. Marshall's un-refuted claims (until recently) have influenced a generation of military historians including T.R. Fehrenbach and Russell F. Weigley. Marshall is quick to point out that the alleged seventy-five percent of those who did not shoot were not shirkers or meanderers. These men were on the front line with their assigned units and often performed other essential tasks relating to combat duty. When the confusion and chaos of a fire fight ensued, however, they just did not shoot their weapons. Marshall rejects the reason most often used for not firing, that of giving one's position away. Instead, Marshall contends it is just a gut-level fear that prevents these men from firing at the enemy. Fears of letting down one's comrades were also prevalent among the interviewees. Most importantly, however, Marshall found "that fear of killing, rather than the fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure in the individual, and that fear of failure ran a close second." Predictively, Marshall does not cite any of his evidence and his less than scientific methods have been widely refuted in recent decades. However, the questions that he poses about the psychological makeup of an American in combat have some merit. It is widely agreed by military professionals that two years is enough time to adequately train an individual for combat. Yet given the uniquely American dependence on the citizen soldier, is this time period sufficient to turn an ordinary civilian into an effective combat soldier? Is an American conscript morally and ethically suited for this role? Is there a solution other than Marshall's proposing that units train together and stay together with a tight knit cadre of officers and non-coms that would provide the basis of moral support all through training and eventual deployment in combat? In hindsight, one such inception, "Operation Gyroscope" in the late 1950s was a complete failure. It is the thought provoking answers to these questions that make S.L.A. Marshall's book a significant addition to any bookshelf, though its viewpoints are severely dated and controversial.

S.L.A. Marshall spent a lifetime writing in and about the U.S. Army in conflicts from the First World War to Vietnam. A journalist by trade, he had some success as a historian writing between the wars he witnessed. His 1947 book "Men Against Fire" contained the controversial conclusion that some 75% of soldiers on the battlefield failed to engage the enemy in any given fight. He attributed this failing to fear, a sense of isolation on the dispersed modern battlefield, and a lack of leadership.

Marshall's conclusions have since been challenged on the basis of a suspect methodology, but he may have put his finger on a real problem. The individual replacement system in use in the Second World War and Vietnam had an unfortunate tendency to place new soldiers into units already on the fighting line. Many of these soldiers were undertrained and had little opportunity to be integrated into their units, let alone to get to know and trust their leadership. Add to this situation the normal fear and stress of combat, and you might get soldiers that failed to engage the enemy in a useful manner.

Marshall's recommendations are commonsensical and have long since been integrated into Army practice. Military units do best when they train long and hard under the same leadership that will take them into combat. Recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan bear this out. "Men Against Fire" is recommended as an historical mark on the wall on the Army's eternal struggle to field trained, ready, and effective combat units.

During World War II, S.L.A. Marshall was busily engaged in recording the history of the war and had developed a method of capturing data from soldiers within a short time of the conclusion of various battles. As he was doing this, he started realizing that there was a problem with our infantry and the way they were fighting the war. He pulled his thoughts together into this book and excerpts of it were also published as a series of essays that appeared in the "Infantry Journal" in 1947. The problem that he identified was that U.S. Infantry forces were not fighting as coherently as they should have been and consequently were either not winning battles fast enough, or were defeated unnecessarily.

While he called the book "Men Against Fire" the much better title for it is the subtitle of "the Problem of Battle Command." This book is really a call for action on how to train American infantrymen to fight the battle. The book starts out with Marshall's thoughts on why Infantry are the important elements of the Army at this time and likely to be so in the future as well. To put this in context, these words were written in the 1946 and 1947 when many military theorists were supposing that the Nuclear age had ushered in an era where Armies are no longer needed as sending over some bombers or missiles armed with nuclear warheads will finish things off. It is quite interesting to read his thoughts in 2012 as the U.S. is still engaged in Afghanistan and the U.S. Army is just completing a transition from a heavy mechanized force to one that is heavily Infantry-based! What is particularly interesting is that his arguments still resonate and were proven correct in many of the conflicts that took place in the intervening 65 years!

Marshall's main prescriptions are that the way to train and treat the infantryman is to realize that he is human and that, as a human, he needs social clues and the understanding of groups to be able to operate. This is especially true in modern battlefield conditions where the infantryman who's been shot at, finds the nearest little scrap of cover and hides as much of himself as possible. The battlefield is empty as neither side shows themselves. So, why and where should he go? Who and how does he get direction from? Etc. These thoughts are the strongest parts of the book and as a veteran myself, these are the thoughts that ring the truest for me. Marshall has some very practical and eminently sensible suggestions on what the NCO's and officers should be doing in a battle. Those suggestions should be followed closely.

To make his point even stronger, Marshall cites a fantastic statistic. According to him, based on his research with veterans of many battles moments after the battles ended, most infantrymen do not fire their weapons. He actually claims that only about 15% of the infantrymen use their weapons and fire them. When I read this I was very skeptical as it did not seem right to me either logically, or based on my own experiences. To clarify this point, he relates this only to the individual riflemen and points out that and crew-served weapons did not display this problem. There is an introduction to this book that must have been written after Marshall's death as in it this problem is resolved. Marshall made up the statistic. It was never discussed or researched; it was simply made up as a way to shock the readers into paying attention. I suppose Marshall intended this as a pedagogical device, but I know that this one factor alone made me think twice about the rest of the contents of the book and still leaves a bit of a bitter flavor in my mouth - can I really believe what he says?

Leaving aside this problem, what else does Marshall discuss? Well, he suggests several different ways in which leaders need to behave to get action from their troops. Starting with training in more realistic conditions; communicating both front to back and laterally; Making sure that your words are sent along to all your soldiers and understood in the way that they were meant to be; communicating with adjacent units whether or not they are part of the larger unit that you belong to; communicating constantly and loudly; treating your soldiers like human beings; and much more is dealt with in the rest of this relatively slim volume.

If you are thinking of becoming a leader of troops who will become embroiled in a battle, or are already in such a position, this book is a must read. Even if you are not, but are interested in how to lead people, this book will help. I also found many other interesting little tidbits in it that still ring true even though we are almost 70 years removed from its writing. The only one that I will quote here goes like this: "There is something almost fatally quixotic about a nation which professes lofty ideals in its international undertakings and yet disdains to talk patriotism to its citizens, as if this were beneath its dignity." Those are words to remember in 2012, in the United States.