2RHPZ
09-10-2004, 05:17 PM
The Worm Revisited: An Examination of Fear and Courage in Combat
http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/images/Leadership_b.jpg
Troops of the 2nd Canadian Division attacking on Vimy Ridge, 9 April 1917.
http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/images/Leadership4_b.jpg
Flying stress. Aircrew from 417 Fighter Squadron after flying a mission with the Desert Air Force in Libya, 21 February 1943.
Fear is a subject that is rarely discussed in the military. In many ways it is taboo to do so. After all, fear is often equated with weakness and contrary to having a soldierly disposition. Moreover, it is seen as particularly unmanly in an institution that is still largely dominated by males. To most serving personnel, if there was only one quality that could be assigned to them, most would choose to be described as brave or courageous. One need only consider how often the phrase, “what are ya, scared?” has effectively motivated someone to perform a task that they would rather not have done.
But fear is a normal emotion. The essence of the issue is not whether a person experiences fear, but rather how it is controlled and utilized to benefit the effectiveness of military personnel in times of stress, danger and crisis. Conversely, the failure to recognize the reality of fear and its effects can have serious repercussions that manifest themselves at the most inopportune, if not catastrophic, moments. It is an unfortunate fact of military service – more accurately our military culture – that has led to the misguided perception that a soldier must never demonstrate or admit to fear.
Denial of fear has long been part of the military culture, which still maintains a great degree of bravado and machismo, particularly among young soldiers and junior officers. “Culture,” according to anthropologist Donna Winslow, “represents the behaviour patterns or style of an organization that members are automatically encouraged to follow.” She believes that “Culture shapes action by supplying some of the ultimate aims or values of an organization and actors modify their behaviour to achieve those ends.” She explains that culture “establishes a set of ideal standards and expectations that members are supposed to follow.”2 Quite simply, the culture existing within an organization socializes those within the group, particularly newcomers, and shapes their attitudes and behaviour to correspond to the existing framework. In sum, it creates common expectations of what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.
And so, military culture has a pervasive influence on how the issue of fear is handled within the institution, or more accurately, how it is ignored. It is generally seen as a distasteful subject that is better left alone. “An officer,” explained sociologist and former officer Anthony Kellet, “was expected to suppress fears and foreboding, and not to discuss them as [it was considered] lacking in martial spirit and boring to brother officers.”3 Samuel Hynes, in his scholarly research on the subject, found that the education and training of the majority of officers inculcated a belief that “fear and its expression are especially abhorrent.” He suggested that “young officers had been trained to an impossible ideal of leadership and self-control; not only must they lead their men fearlessly; they must be fearless.”4
But it is not only officers who are weighed down by this burden imposed by military culture. “When bullets are whacking against tree trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like eggshells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way.” So wrote a young participant of the battle of Antietam in 1862. He added: “Between the physical fear of going forward and the moral fear of turning back, there is a predicament of exceptional awkwardness from which a hidden hole in the ground would be a wonderfully welcome outlet.”5 More recently, one investigative reporter discovered after a large number of interviews that: “It’s hard to confess fear to your buddy, let alone the platoon commander.”6 In fact, the chaplain of the 101st Airborne Division prior to the War in Iraq in 2003, revealed: “Few come to him openly professing fear of combat. ... The one who did said he was terribly ashamed to admit it.”7
Full article (http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/Leadership_e.asp)
http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/images/Leadership_b.jpg
Troops of the 2nd Canadian Division attacking on Vimy Ridge, 9 April 1917.
http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/images/Leadership4_b.jpg
Flying stress. Aircrew from 417 Fighter Squadron after flying a mission with the Desert Air Force in Libya, 21 February 1943.
Fear is a subject that is rarely discussed in the military. In many ways it is taboo to do so. After all, fear is often equated with weakness and contrary to having a soldierly disposition. Moreover, it is seen as particularly unmanly in an institution that is still largely dominated by males. To most serving personnel, if there was only one quality that could be assigned to them, most would choose to be described as brave or courageous. One need only consider how often the phrase, “what are ya, scared?” has effectively motivated someone to perform a task that they would rather not have done.
But fear is a normal emotion. The essence of the issue is not whether a person experiences fear, but rather how it is controlled and utilized to benefit the effectiveness of military personnel in times of stress, danger and crisis. Conversely, the failure to recognize the reality of fear and its effects can have serious repercussions that manifest themselves at the most inopportune, if not catastrophic, moments. It is an unfortunate fact of military service – more accurately our military culture – that has led to the misguided perception that a soldier must never demonstrate or admit to fear.
Denial of fear has long been part of the military culture, which still maintains a great degree of bravado and machismo, particularly among young soldiers and junior officers. “Culture,” according to anthropologist Donna Winslow, “represents the behaviour patterns or style of an organization that members are automatically encouraged to follow.” She believes that “Culture shapes action by supplying some of the ultimate aims or values of an organization and actors modify their behaviour to achieve those ends.” She explains that culture “establishes a set of ideal standards and expectations that members are supposed to follow.”2 Quite simply, the culture existing within an organization socializes those within the group, particularly newcomers, and shapes their attitudes and behaviour to correspond to the existing framework. In sum, it creates common expectations of what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.
And so, military culture has a pervasive influence on how the issue of fear is handled within the institution, or more accurately, how it is ignored. It is generally seen as a distasteful subject that is better left alone. “An officer,” explained sociologist and former officer Anthony Kellet, “was expected to suppress fears and foreboding, and not to discuss them as [it was considered] lacking in martial spirit and boring to brother officers.”3 Samuel Hynes, in his scholarly research on the subject, found that the education and training of the majority of officers inculcated a belief that “fear and its expression are especially abhorrent.” He suggested that “young officers had been trained to an impossible ideal of leadership and self-control; not only must they lead their men fearlessly; they must be fearless.”4
But it is not only officers who are weighed down by this burden imposed by military culture. “When bullets are whacking against tree trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like eggshells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way.” So wrote a young participant of the battle of Antietam in 1862. He added: “Between the physical fear of going forward and the moral fear of turning back, there is a predicament of exceptional awkwardness from which a hidden hole in the ground would be a wonderfully welcome outlet.”5 More recently, one investigative reporter discovered after a large number of interviews that: “It’s hard to confess fear to your buddy, let alone the platoon commander.”6 In fact, the chaplain of the 101st Airborne Division prior to the War in Iraq in 2003, revealed: “Few come to him openly professing fear of combat. ... The one who did said he was terribly ashamed to admit it.”7
Full article (http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol5/no2/Leadership_e.asp)