TampereOwl wrote:Men in wars - even Finnish men in wars - sh*t and p*ss themselves, but they don't tend to talk about it afterwards. You were clearly talking about men considering leaving their stations, and I don't think those men were that bothered about the homoerotic camaraderie that's giving you your present hard-on.
Who said they don't piss and !"#¤% themselves?
Anyone who is not an idiot has thought of leaving in his mind when they know battle will come.
But your "homoerotic camaraderie" as you so spinelessly described it, tends to raise persons odds of leaving.
Or would you explain what motivates soldiers to commit even actions of utter stupidity (from point of view of their own wellbeing) when there is no MP holding pistol to their head like in your jerking material?
You know, those guys jumping on grenades, charging MG-nests and so forth, taking actions which are guaranteed to end up with them dead.
I can't be arsed to find the stats, but I know plenty of soldiers were sentenced to death for desertion on the allied side. Finns aren't that different some of them don't wet their pants and run away in a war. It's a natural, human reaction and armies have to stamp on it hard by threatening to kill people who succumb.
So would you like to prove that it is primarily fear of MP which keeps men in line? You clearly do not grasp that MP are not some kind of divine force which sees everything and knows everything. If they were, there would not be men who escaped service for months.
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/army/a/soldiersfight.htm
Stouffer’s conclusions supported historian S. L. A. Marshall’s “Men Against Fire” released in 1942.
“I hold it to be of the simplest truths of war that the thing which enables an infantry soldier to keep going with his weapons is the near presence or the presumed presence of a comrade…He is sustained by his fellows primarily and by his weapons secondarily.”
Another noted research paper by Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz surprisingly showed similar results among Germany’s Wehrmacht soldiers who fought on even as Berlin fell.
The team asked the soldiers the same question Stouffer asked soldiers in his 1949 study -- “Generally, in your combat experience, what was most important to you in making you want to keep going and do as well as you did.”
American soldiers in Iraq responded similarly to their ancestors about wanting to return home, but the most frequent response given for combat motivation was “fighting for my buddies,” Wong’s report said.
The report uncovered two roles for social cohesion in combat.
One role is that each soldier is responsible for group success and protecting the unit from harm. As one soldier put it, “That person means more to you than anybody. You will die if he dies. That is why I think that we protect each other in any situation. I know that if he dies, and it was my fault, it would be worse than death to me.”
The other role is it provides the confidence and assurance that someone is watching their back. In one infantryman’s words, “You have got to trust them more than your mother, your father, or girlfriend, or your wife, or anybody. It becomes almost like your guardian angel.”
Once soldiers are convinced their personal safety will be assured by others, they are empowered to do their job without worry, the study stated. It noted that soldiers understood totally entrusting their safety could be viewed as irrational. One soldier shared his parents’ reaction -- “My whole family thinks that I am a nut. They think, ‘How can you put your life in someone’s hands like that? … Your are still going to be shot.’”
Despite the occasional skepticism of outsiders, the report concluded, soldiers greatly valued being free of the distracting concerns of personnel safety.
Looks like you are talking out of your ass, which is no surprise to anyone.
