S.L.A. Marshall fact or fraud?
SLAM was first presented to me when I was in ROTC back in the early 90's as a fully factual sage on military matters, I like my peers read it all and absorbed it, taking it on board as truth. Yet as I've read and researched since then his 'facts' have been challenged. Challenged to the point that his 'facts' are actually fictions. SLAM's writings have been the bedrock of many military concepts and ideas. For instance his writing on marksmanship and shooting (or who shoots) under fire have been/are taught in many military schools. YET his research or lack there of has been entirely discredited. YET the books remain on the Marine Corps Commandants reading list.
Has anyone researched a definitive answer here? Was SLAM a charlatan? If so how have his teachings affected our (US) way of warfighting? Positive or negative? If he fabricated his facts was he still correct?
http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Marshall/Main.htm
-T
Note: Only The Soldiers Load and The Armed Forces Officer remain on the reading list. Men Against Fire does not.
S.L.A. Marshall as a historian
Marshall's grandson, John Douglas Marshall, was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. Later, the younger Marshall embarked on a journey to confront the many questions about the authenticity and reliability of his grandfather's works. This journey is the basis for J.D. Marshall's memoir, Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey (ISBN-13: 978-0295979496).
In that work, the younger Marshall establishes that SLAM offered as facts events from his own life that were demonstrably false. SLAM also comes across as haphazard with his use of facts in his research and writing on military affairs. (The younger Marshall's anguish over these discoveries is evident.)
In my own research on the elder Marshall, I concluded that the man's slapdash approach to history renders his works problematic as reliable contributions to American military historiography.
In my opinion, S.L.A. Marshall, like Stephen Ambrose, J.F.C. Fuller, B. H. Liddell Hart, and, to a much smaller degree, John Jessup, are cautionary tales of what happens when students of warfare seek renown and celebrity.