There didn’t seem to be much sense to getting killed. The war went on at its own slow, deliberate pace, and if he got himself killed it would make no difference one way or another to anyone but himself, and to his family, perhaps. Whether he was dead or not, at exactly the same moment of the twentieth century the armies would move, the machines in which the real fighting finally took place would destroy each other, the surrender would be signed . . . Survive, he remembered desperately from the lumber file, survive, survive . . .
This is from Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions, 1948.
A few months ago, I saw the movie version by the same name on TV and liked it a lot. I realized that I hadn’t seen it since it had first come out and I was eight years old. One thing our family did well together was go to movies and our parents trusted me, the youngest, to understand what was going on. I did, by and large.
My wife, noticing how much I enjoyed the movie, gave me the novel for Father’s Day. It’s thick, it starts slowly, and it’s different from the movie in important ways. (Duh.) So it took me about 100 pages to get into it and I did.
Reading the above passage, it occurred to me that soldiers in most wars are the equivalent of price takers in a competitive market: their actions matter in the aggregate, but for the vast majority of soldiers, their actions individually don’t have a discernible effect on the overall outcome.
So what really makes sense for the vast majority is simply to stay alive.
If you don’t like the price taker analogy, try Mancur Olson’s collective action framework. They’re pretty much the same.
READER COMMENTS
Dustin
Aug 14 2019 at 12:44pm
As a soldier and combat vet, I’m not sure that “staying alive” is the priority. We don’t go to war to stay alive. We go to war to achieve a mission. Ideally, we complete the mission in a way that optimizes survival and minimizes collateral damage, but it’s an important distinction. If we prioritize “stay alive”, we’d simply retreat or hide under a rock.
Jon Murphy
Aug 14 2019 at 12:49pm
Unless accomplishing that mission is the way to do that. Deserters are shot.
VL Elliott
Aug 15 2019 at 7:58pm
Dr. Murphy: I served in the US Army and have spent most of the succeeding 50+ years in work related to national security with a great deal of work with US soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. This included 5 years in Viet-Nam and some Cambodia time. While your logic is correct I cannot recall a single instance of a mission assigned to American or allied military personnel in which retreating was part of their mission orders (even when retreating took place) and “hiding under a rock” or anything like it was, so far as I know, never a part of a mission order. Survival is certainly a desired outcome but, as Dustin notes, soldiers go to war to accomplish the missions assigned to them and, sadly, many do not survive. The many examples include the Lt Col Chamberlain and his Maine militia regiment at Gettysburg, the US Marines at Guadalcanal, and the 101st Airborne/9th & 10th Armored Div elements at Bastogne. The fighters I knew who were forced to retreat did so either to slow down an advancing enemy and join friendly forces either by moving to them or serving as a rallying point for the purpose of fcontinuing the fight or of fighting again (the case of Captain Nguygen Quang Van and his company of Vietnamese – ARVN – Airborne troopers at the end of Lam Song 719 is informative). Those who had to escape and evade did so to re-join friendly forces and to continue to fight (the US Special Forces soldiers of the Lang Vei Camp in Quang Tri Province of the Republic of Viet-Nam in 1968 after the invaders sent in tanks provide numerous examples). Prisoners of war have, as part of their mission, to continue to resist and to escape if possible. The examples provided by then Lt James “Nick’ Rowe in the U Minh Forest area of RVN and civilian Mike Benge and many, many American airmen in the “Hanoi Hilton” are especially noteworthy. So, while I once again acknowledge your correct logic I cannot see that any worthwhile purpose is served by your comment.
KevinDC
Aug 14 2019 at 12:46pm
This reminds me of a passage from Catch-22. I first read that book when I was enlisted in the Marines, and found it hysterically funny. I think the only other books I’ve read which made me laugh out loud like that are all written by Dave Barry. The passage in mind is a brief snippet into the mindset of Yosarrian, who is determined to find any possible means to avoid flying more combat missions:
Jon Murphy
Aug 14 2019 at 12:48pm
I got a very similar lesson when watching Hogan’s Heroes as a teenager/young adult (for those unfamiliar, Hogan’s Heroes is a comedy that is set in a German POW camp during World War 2). There are a few episodes where we get to see the camp kammadant, Col. Klink, and the Sergent of the Guard, Sgt. Schultz, as regular people. Both of them, we see, are just trying to stay alive (which, for them, means staying far, far away from the Eastern Front). Col. Klink, we learn, merely wants to play the violin (which he does terribly) and only joined the Luftwaffe because he was nobility and it was expected.* Sgt. Schultz merely wanted to return to his family’s toy factory, which was nationalized for the war effort and the good Herr Schultz subsequently conscripted.
The actions (or lack thereof) of Schultz and Klink, and the millions of Axis soldiers, mattered in the aggregate (especially as Hogan was running a spy/sabotage ring out of the camp), but individually it mattered less. And thus, we had all kinds of enforcement problems, as evidenced by the frequent visits by the local SS commander Major Hochstetter and the general in charge of all prisons, Gen. Berkhalter.
*Fun fact: the actor who plays Klink, Warner Kemperer, was a renowned opera singer, and his father is the famous composer Otto Kemperer
Alan Goldhammer
Aug 15 2019 at 8:10am
Thanks for the post on Irwin Shaw who has gradually slipped from sight. I always found his writing to be quite good. One of his early stories, “The Eighty Yard Run” is available HERE.
Henri Hein
Aug 15 2019 at 10:31pm
Thanks Alan. That was an enjoyable read.
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