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.
A cautionary tale perhaps...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
Wow! I can only agree. Liddell-Hart was especially prone to plagiarism, fraud, and the altering of facts to fit his thesis. Regardless of this he still has a strong following amongst US military thinkers.
Fuller at least had some genuinely original ideas and useful insights, but they were not as many as commonly supposed.
...for the current crop of "spotlight theorists" at CNAS?
Heh. I can indemnify with that...
Yes, I can. Spot on, Mon Colonel.. :D
I shared a dinner table with Marshall in the early 60s.
In a two hour plus meeting, he reeked of phoniness to the extent of being annoying -- how the Army and his Newspaper missed that over many years, I have no idea...
JMH article and Roger Spiller on Marshall
My recollection of the Journal of Military History article mentioned above on SLAM was that SLAM happened to be helpful due to what the Army changed about its small unit tactics in Vietnam based on his WWII book and "interviews". Basically, he happened to be right, but for the wrong reasons.
Nevertheless, Roger Spiller, former CGSC prof wrote the RUSI article that I believe first outed SLAM's phoniness and the lack of evidence. To quote Roger, a historian I greatly respect and admire, "I have no use for the man."