War Stories: Experience of Combat
Heather Venable, Air Command and Staff College
Course Description:
If a fighter pilot, a Greek hoplite, and a Civil War soldier sat down with their favorite beverages of choice to share war stories, would they be able to connect and relate to each other’s experiences or would their differences be unbridgeable? In seeking to answer this question, the course begins by taking a theoretical dive into understandings of how men and women endure the paradoxical nature of combat: that for some it is equally characterized by horrors and highs. Dave Grossman’s On Killing offers insights into the experience of combat by arguing how hard it is to overcome man’s inclination not to kill. More specifically, he suggests that the closer one gets to an opponent, the harder it becomes to kill him. John Keegan’s The Face of Battle will build on Grossman’s perspective as we seek to determine how much the experience of combat has changed over time. From there, we will journey through time and space to gain insight into the varieties of combat experience. Is there a universal experience of combat or is context more important in shaping that experience? The hope is that this course will be useful to participants in understanding the broad experience and range of combat whether experienced in a firefight at Fallujah or in operating a drone from the relative comfort of Creech AFB.
Disclaimer: This class examines combat at a very visceral level, and it might trigger symptoms of combat trauma. Please consider whether you will find graphic descriptions and depictions of combat to be a difficulty when deciding if you want to take this elective. While the objective of the course is not to offend or horrify, much of the material can be disturbing, and there is really no way to take the course without experiencing that material.
Course objectives:
To comprehend the theoretical scholarship on killing in combat
To apply this theory to the experiences of combatants in different places and times
To apply this knowledge to identifying patterns of change and continuity in conflicts of your own choosing.
Method of evaluation:
Reading responses (50%): Write a 2.5 page reading response (double spaced) for four classes. Submit version to canvas prior to class. (Total: 10 pages) NOTE: You are not required to read the entire book if it is not assigned and you choose to write a book review. Also, the one book you should not review is VietCong Memoir as it is too short for a review.
Presentation (30%): Compare and contrast combat experiences in two different wars or two different aspects of the same war. The goal is to introduce insights different from those covered in class. Powerpoint slides optional. (10-15 minutes)
Memoir reflection (20%): For Day 11, you will read a memoir or other related book of your choice and analyze it through the lens of the course themes that you should submit to canvas prior to class (2 pages).
Required texts:
Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
Van Wees, Hans. Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2004.
Keegan, John. Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
Hess, Earl J. The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. University Press of Kansas, 1997.
Pennington, Reina. Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat. University Press of Kansas, 2002.
McManus, John C. Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II through Iraq. New York: NAL, 2011.
Larteguy, Jean. The Centurions. New York: Penguin Classics, 2015.
Tang, Troung Nhu. A VietCong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath. New York: Vintage, 1986.
McCurley, T. Mark. Hunter Killer: The True Story of the Drone Mission that Killed Answar al-Awlaki. New York: Dutton, 2016 and Matt J. Martin and Charles W. Sasser, Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot’s Story. Zenith Press, 2010.
Marlantes, Karl. What It Is Like to Go to War. New York: Grove Press, 2012.
Class Schedule:
EL-1 (Jan 20): Theory Redux: Killing at Different Ranges
Reading: Dave Grossman, On Killing, 1-155
In class: Discussion and in-class viewing of November War (viewings listed here and for subsequent changes might change at instructor’s discretion)
EL-2 (Jan 27): 300?: The Rhetoric and Reality of Greek Warfare
Reading: Hans Van Wees, Greek Warfare, 1-5, 34-97, 115-117, and 153-197
In class: Discussion and continued viewing of November War
The Greeks were not the first to fight in formation. They were not the first to use shock tactics. But what is special about them is that they are the first to establish explicit connections between military service and citizenship. This constructivist idea is just one reason that they remain so intriguing to us today.
EL-3 (Feb 10): Killing in Two Famous Pre-Industrial Battles: Agincourt & Waterloo
How, if at all, did the experience of combat change in two of these famous and decisive European battles, one fought between the English and the French in 1415 and the next fought 400 years later between the English and its allies and the French once again? What contextual factors help us to understand changes in the nature of war? How far apart are these battles in time and place?
Overviews of Agincourt & Waterloo
Reading: John Keegan, Face of Battle, 78-206
Be prepared to discuss your proposed research (AY22)
EL-4 (Feb 17): Brother versus Brother: Civil War Combat
Reading: Earl Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, ix-142, 192-98
90-minute class; be prepared to discuss your proposed research (AY21)
90 minutes research for presentation
What is it like to be a Civil War soldier given the nature of the technology and the tactics? What is the role of ideology? How different does this shape the experience compared to the modern soldier?
EL-5 (Feb 24): Research Day
EL-6 (Mar 17): Aviators in World War II
Reading: Reina Pennington, Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat, vii-177
90-minute class; 90 minutes research for presentation
EL-7 (Mar 31): Marines in Three Wars
What are the similarities and differences experienced by Marines in the Battle of Peleliu (1944), the counterinsurgency waged by the Marines in Vietnam, and the Battle of Fallujah in 2004? The Marine Corps prides itself on pre-industrial warrior values while conducting modern warfare. How does that dichotomy help us to understand the evolving or continuing experiences of Marines?
Reading: John McManus, Grunts, 52-102, 207-42, and 335-405
In-class viewing: Portions of Combat Diary
EL-8 (Apr 7): From the Other Side: Non-Western Experience of War
Reading: A Vietcong Memoir, 63-87; 130-144; 156-175; The Centurions, ix-30 and 325-519 (skim as necessary).
In-class viewing: My Lai massacre documentary
EL-9 (Apr 14): Presentations
Reading: None.
EL-10 (Apr 21): Killing at a Distance: RPAs and the Future of War
What effect does killing at thousands of miles away have, if any, on RPA pilots? This class provides further consideration on Eye in the Sky and invites us to consider if Dave Grossman’s theory provides a framework for understanding this combat experience. Finally, what insights does this technology offer into the future of war if it will increasingly be waged from stand-off distances? Does this bode the end of the “warrior” in a way analogous to the Battle of Agincourt?
Remaining presentations
Reading: T. Mark McCurley, Hunter Killer, 13-136 and Matt Martin, Predator, ix, 29-55, 81-112.
Jason Armagost, "Things to Pack When You’re Bound for Baghdad," all
In-class viewing: TBD
EL-11 (Apr 28): Reading and Analyzing War Stories
Read a memoir of your choice and analyze it through the lens of what we have discussed in class.
EL-12 (May 5): On Living
As the Battle of Fallujah came to an end, John C. McManus (author of Grunts) wrote in regard to the Marines and soldiers who had fought there, “their struggle for peace was just beginning.” This reading draws parallels between combat today and the author’s own experience in the Vietnam War, providing a final opportunity to discuss continuities and disconnects in the experience of combat while considering the long road to living peacefully with one’s combat experience.
Reading: Karl Marlantes, What it is Like to Go to War, 1-134
Viewing: Selections TBD
A few suggested presentation topics to get you thinking:
Grossman/SLA Marshall vs. other theorists (ex. Joanna Bourke) who argue it is much easier to kill or earlier writers (Ardant du Picq, Lord Moran)
The First Killers: Prehistoric War; compare to studies of tribal warfare more recently?
Civil War: compare Union and Confederate experiences
World War I trench warfare vs mobile phases of war where casualties were highest in opening and closing phases of war; live and let live system
World War II
A few focus areas include:
eastern vs western front; Pacific (John Dowding-race war?) versus Europe
Naval (At War at Sea)
age of sail versus age of steam versus WWII combat versus missile age
versus air or ground
Fighter pilots in Battle of Britain vs CBO pilots/crewmen; CBO versus firebombing; Linebacker II versus CBO
Changing historical combat experience of women (see Ashley’s War for one example)
Child soldiers
Killing in the skies: WWI vs Korean or Vietnam experience? RPAs versus manned aircraft?
Conventional conflicts versus conflicts without fronts where you can’t measure the front moving to know if you are “winning”
Linear battlefield where you can see your opponent and your fellow soldiers versus empty battlefield (ex. Hoplites, U.S. Civil War versus more recent)
Varieties of experience of Native Americans?
Combat motivation in conscripts vs volunteers
Changing role of religion in war