Mike:
Are you sure you read that right? The tables I am looking at show one E-6 and one O-1 agreed that they would fire. One O-1 and one O-3 said they had no opinion. A 'no opinion' guy may go with the wind and somebody from on high pushing would be a pretty strong wind. But a sample of 13 isn't really reliable.
An interesting part of the survey was the most willing to fire or with no opinion were the E-2s and E-4s. 43 of E-2s said they would fire or had no opinion vs. 50 who said they would not. 32 of the E-4s said they would fire or had no opinion vs. 35 who said they would not.
No wonder the author of the study said the unit might break up.
This study was done almost 20 years ago and I know of no other similar study done since. There probably won't be one either.
Do guys out there think think attitudes have changed much since the study was done? Why were there such variations in attitudes amongst the enlisted men? Are brand new soldiers more likely to do anything they are told? The cultural disconnect Mike spoke of is, I think, getting more pronounced in the civilian world. Is that reflected at all in the military?
I know there is probably no hard data out there on any of this so I seek subjective opinions.
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