Combat Participation

[Olive Oyl]

I know Grossman's work. Personally I think it's just plain wrong. ...

For the life of me I cannot understand why Grossman is still being seriously discussed. ...

Besides 18 Platoon, does anyone have additional recommendations as alternatives to Grossman's work on "killology"?


Also, regarding:

William,

In my experiences in first person interaction with American men of the last three Generations (roughly: WWII, Viet-Nam, GWOT, for sake of example), I find that their personal Christian, or other, faith has in the aggregate fallen off ...

Predictions; cowardice, self-preservation to the detriment of Nation-State, malinvestment, creditory depletion, corporate greed, poor stewardship, poor planning, wasteage, faithlessness, non-church attendance, marital infidelity & suicide
will continue to increase.

Does that make sense to anyone in regards to combat participation, or the lack thereof?

Huh!?!
...

The Waffen SS was also not famous for church going....

I am really, really missing something here....

"...faith has fallen off..." Rather than a direct decrease in combat participation, it sounds like Bullmoose might have been referring more specifically to a decrease in moral bases (derived from religion, or "church-going," or, in the Nazis' case, from an ideology) for combat participation. Perhaps alluding to a similar conjecture?:

This reflective poet does IMO need to be able to generate ‘controlled aggression’ but I don’t think that that requires an aggressive/ gung-ho nature per say.
A counter to this could be that the reflective poet may be less inclined to do what ‘needs’ to be done if he is not morally behind it. That would make it harder for him to generate the required aggression as opposed to utilising a level of aggression that is already there.

Emphases added and truncations imposed on quotes.

My own speculation abundant throughout. Please correct any misinterpretations!