July 23, 2000

Typeface changed and annotated on October 27, 2001

THE MENTALITY OF COMBAT.

I am neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. I have never undergone either psychological or psychiatric treatment or examination. I have taken many so-called psychological tests for University admissions but never took one for any other reason.

ANNOTATION:I am not a warrior unlike professional soldiers who are warriors in the fullest sense of the world. Why else would they go back into combat time and time again? I am not a warrior but a peace loving civilian who did combat because it had to be done. I did it when I was 19/20, the right age mentally and physically to do combat and because I was ordered to do so! I never had a choice. I did not try to get out of it (unlike others I could name) since I considered that to be cowardly. I thought of it as my duty to my country and today some 55 years later I am proud of myself. END OF ANNOTATION.

I have never discussed this subject (the mentality of combat) with anyone except my wife and children. I did have some fruit cake (an Army medical doctor) who could not blow up my eustachian tubes (collapsed from combat noise) tell me that "Son, it's all in your head". It was most valuable to know that!

I have read countless books about war in my 76 years! I have read every book by the famous war historian, John Keegan. But I have not confined myself to Keegan. I have read innumerable books about war, including too many to mention, of our Civil War (the most interesting was "Maps of the Civil War, the Roads They Took"). My guess is that I have devoured about 100 books on war, in all its aspects; about the Big Shots and about the ones that did the dirty work(guys like me [for which the big shots get the credit]).

My entire life has been spent reading history. My library consists of about 4000 books of which perhaps 60/65 percent is history in one form or another.

To quote Abraham Lincoln:

As John Keegan in his book "The Face of Battle" points out, his generation knows very little about battle since there has been no World War since 1945. His generation has not had to do combat! He points out that as a military historian he has never done combat in spite of the fact that his lifetime has been spent writing about war and combat!

It is now some 55 years since I did infantry combat. It has taken that long for me to be able to cope with the hateful subject. If anyone had told me that I would do an entire series on WW2 I would have declared them MAD, STARK RAVING MAD.

But the Internet has changed life as we used to know it. In my 60+ years of reading history I have always thought:

"It would have been marvelous if someone in our history had recorded their personal thoughts so that we would know things directly and not through the hall of mirrors called History. If they had we would not have to guess but would KNOW. Knowing is everything if we are going to avoid the horrible mistakes of the past."

I believe that each and every one of us that has lived this long (76 years and counting) has a moral obligation to pass on to the youngers the knowledge the olders have accumulated. The youngers can do with it what they wish but at least the knowledge is passed on.

The Internet permits us to do that. At the moment I am running close to 1,000,000 hits a year so something is to be said for passing on knowledge.

It is with this in mind that I present my unadulterated, unexpurgated thoughts about my mental processes in Infantry combat with the 104th Infantry Regiment of the 26th infantry Division in World War II.

I do not under any circumstances claim these thoughts to be universal, I speak for no one and on behalf of no one, my thoughts may be unique to me. After all there are about 5 billion people on this planet and each and every one of us is unique from a genetic point of view (including twins!).

There are certain things about infantry combat that are basic, fundamental. I am talking as a foot soldier basically armed with a rifle of one kind or another.

Territory is the key to infantry combat. All combat is over territory which, in my war, we used to call "real estate".

In the battle of Verdun after one year and 400,000 (estimated by John Keegan) killed on the German and Allied sides the total amount of territory that exchanged hands was less than 100 yards. That 100 yards cost 400,000 men their lives.

The current importance of territory is best epitomized by the simple fact that the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot get together on the issue of the Golan Heights. I have been there and it looks down on miles and miles of surrounding geography.

Whomever controls the Golan Heights controls all the territory as far as the human eye can see.

I wrote in 1972 that the Israelis would never give up the Golan Heights and I repeat it now in the year 2000. Forget it!

All enemy fire is directed at the supposed location of their enemy. I say "supposed location" because sometimes the firing is done by map readings which may or may not be accurate. There are times when direct observation is impossible and so a guess is made where the enemy might be (crossroads are always a good bet).

This generally pertains to artillery fire but I have also seen mortar fire as well as artillery fire fall on crossroads locations which firing was totally and completely ineffectual since the maps were inaccurate.

The general case is that direct observation of the enemy dictates artillery, mortar, machine gun, rifle, tank fire and aircraft fire.

What is direct observation?

"Direct observation is a human being seeing the enemy in sight with the ability to identify that enemy both as to time and location which location can be identified on a map."

Direct observation, therefore, enables the enemy to call in all kinds of fire be it artillery, mortar, aircraft, rifle, machine gun, tank fire or aircraft fire.

All fire towards an enemy is affected more or less by the following:

• temperature
• terrain
• humidity
• barometric pressure
• distance
• quality of ammunition (German artillery shells frequently did not explode)
• experience of personnel
• counter-fire
• type of ammunition
• field of observation
• grouping of enemy

What this results in is a field of detonation and not a single point of detonation:

The field on which the firing is concentrated is relatively well defined but the impacts of the firing is random:

"random (ran?d?m) adjective

1.Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements; a random choice. See synonyms at chance.
2.Statistics. Of or relating to the same or equal chances or probability of occurrence for each member of a group.

"random walk (ran?d?m wôk) noun.Statistics.
A series of sequential movements in which the direction and size of each move is randomly determined."Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Whether or not you get killed or wounded is the end result of a random event. The odds are totally against you and you have absolutely no control over the odds! The odds dictate that you are going to throw craps, sooner or later!

This does not mean that you are helpless in the face of enemy fire. On the contrary, there are things you can do that may prolong your life when you are under enemy fire. The options available to you depend on whether you are in an attack or a defensive position.

The two are totally and completely dissimilar. In an attack you are above ground and moving into and at the inferno (almost all of my combat experience was in the ATTACK mode!).

In a defensive position you tend to be below the ground level and relatively sheltered from the inferno (I can only remember two times when we were on the defensive).

But never forget that, as I have said elsewhere, the odds are that you will either get killed or wounded since, in my book, the casualties in combat are close to 100 percent of all combatants in a three month time period.

In the attack mode you are forced to stand up or crouch and run towards the enemy! You are, therefore, a target for the enemy to shoot at! Can you think of a better target? A human form almost 6 feet tall or if crouching about 5 feet tall silhouetted against the background and running towards the shooters! An easy shot, easy to kill on sight!

You automatically draw fire as a target, the moment you move (unless there are so many moving that some targets are overlooked).

In my entire time in combat I guess that we were in attacks about 75 percent of the time (including what I always called "Push Throughs" [the tanks preceded us and we just 'pushed through' the enemy line since the enemy had retreated] ). The other 25 percent of the time was either in reserve or in a defensive position preparing for attack).

Anyone who has served in infantry combat can recount close calls almost endlessly. I would guess.

I had my share during my time in combat:

• In one attack the machine guns bullets of the German troops ripped my nap sack apart and the C rations were ripped open. An inch or two lower and I would have gotten it in the back, the gut or the head.
• A German potato masher (hand grenade) was thrown at me in close in fighting and it was deflected by a tree branch above my head. Before it exploded, but after I saw it fall, I turned my back, dropped down to the ground (I had been firing from a kneeling position) and it went off with no harm to me.
• In an attack we came under heavy German mortar fire and one shell went off about two feet away from me on my right side . I was unscathed since I was in the shrapnel free zone of the explosion.
• My combat buddy and I were in a foxhole that was on its way to China when I got a horrible feeling. I got up and ran back, away from the fox hole. My buddy, seeing me run, came after me. We heard an explosion and turned around to see our fox hole being blown up!
• We were advancing through a forest hugging the ditches at the side of a dirt road. I was the forward scout. A German stepped out of the forest onto the road and opened fire on me with his burp gun. He missed, I dropped to the road, returned the fire and he got away. I missed too.
• We were advancing against German infantry posted at the edge of a forest. I was the first scout. A German machine gun opened fire on me. They missed me and stopped firing after I hit the ground. I signaled our officer who called in artillery and light tanks. The light tanks came in following our artillery fire. The Germans retreated and we had no opposition at the forest edge.
• We were in an attack position from which to move out in the morning. The night and surrounding territory was as black as the ace of spades. Fire fights and mortar fire went on all night. I and my buddy were told to relieve our forward position. We got out of our fox hole, crawled forward and were immediately lost. We froze in position an stayed there all night. Dawn came and we were in front of our own lines in no mans land!
• Our officer (I think it was Lt. Winters, but am not sure) directed me to lead off. My second scout ( a green replacement) pushed me away and decided to lead off. He walked up to the crest of the hill in front of us and was hit immediately by '88 fire. He was killed instantly.
• I could go on and on some more but you get the point. Combat is one close call after another until your number comes up!

From the day I can remember I have always thought that luck (or the lack of it) is a vital part of life. Some of us have enormous luck, some have none at all.

I am a very firm believer in luck (Lyndon Baines Johnson made me famous[ for my time] in a news conference by quoting me extolling his income tax cut. He had no idea of whom I was. That quote made me!).

I am a fatalist.

I also realize that random events, over which we have zero control, shape our destiny.

Luck, random events and fate are what life is all about.

We are born with certain attributes which, in my book, neither education nor experience change very much except to sharpen or dull.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU TRAIN AND NO MATTER HOW DISCIPLINED YOU MAY BE, FATE, RANDOM EVENTS AND DUMB LUCK PRETTY MUCH DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT YOU SURVIVE COMBAT.

• An inch, a half inch, a quarter inch, an eighth of an inch can make all the difference in the world as to being killed or wounded!
• A depression in the ground, no matter how slight, may save your life.

• Cover of any kind may be vital to keeping you alive (I once dove into a shell hole filled with water in mid-November, 1944 since that would give me some protection from incoming enemy artillery and mortar fire).
• Returning enemy fire with your own may be the most conservative thing to do. Many thought that attracted enemy fire but I always thought it WAS THE REVERSE.
• Tracer bullets are an invitation to get shot at!
• A nap sack in combat is not only a burden of weight but an increase of your height above the ground and, therefore, your vulnerability.
• Standing up is stupid.
• Survival depends as much on THINKING as anything else!

  ---

Not one word here is necessarily applicable to anybody else. We are all different and we all march to different drummers. No two of us necessarily react to danger the same way (my wife gets excited over nonsense but is as cool as a cucumber in crises!).

I basically trained myself by reading every manual in the REC hall (Recreation room, always empty) at Fort McClellan. The Army has a manual for every subject under the sun and that is an understatement!

When I was at Fort McClellan all my spare time was spent reading the Army manuals including how to build a latrine.

Until I went into combat I did not know if I would be calm or panic since I had not been there, done that.

My first attack gave me the answer: calm and thinking (fortunately).

Was I frightened at all times?

Yes and no.

When I was in a foxhole, a slit trench, protected by some object, in reserve or just plain waiting the answer is no, I was not frightened to any degree.

When the shelling started, when in an attack, when engaging the enemy in all its various and sundry forms, when under machine gun fire, when the tanks appeared to block our way, when openly confronted by the Krauts, when I was the particular target of the Krauts I was frightened as hell.

However, I was lucky and the fright never once caused me to freeze or panic. In some ways I was more terrified of doing nothing than I was terrified to make a move, doing something, reacting to enemy fire. I had come to realize that doing nothing almost guaranteed death or wounds but doing something minimized those possibilities.

I am proud to say that I never once panicked the many months I was in combat. Looking back I am amazed how cool I was but then....it has too be true since combat is waged and won by those who don't panic and who don't freeze. I certainly was not alone in coolness in under fire but like the thousands upon thousands of other combat GI's I am proud of it.

"Experienced infantrymen know well that certain of their number are more lethal than most others. These ace infantry men are usually more skillful and, most important, 'lucky'. Research has shown that luck is not random, but the result of opportunism and careful preparation.In other words people tend to make their own luck...what it comes down to is that less than 10 percent of your infantrymen or tank crews will inflict more than half the damage on the enemy.".DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS, James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi,Quill William Morrow, New York,1990, page 90.

But then my life was one of coolness under fire because many of my positions in my economic and financial specialty were subject to derision and ridicule including my forecast of the downfall of the Soviet Union, my support of Richard Nixon as the next President of the U.S. in 1967, my acting as the principal economic spokesman for Richard Nixon in the 1972 Presidential campaign, my forecasts of the prosperity being greater in peace than in war, my forecasts of almost each and every postwar recession and most certainly my run for Governor of New York. I was not as cool then as I should have been but that's another story!

I learned to think and analyze while under enemy fire.I had a rule which consisted of three elements: Observe, Analyze and React. Today, with acronyms being the rage, we would call it the rule of OAR!

Observe: where is the enemy fire coming from, how far away is it, what is being fired, what are the parameters of the firing, are there any peculiarities to the firing, what is the timing, how heavy is it, does it have a pattern, is it machine gun or rifle fire, is it guided fire ?

Analyze: Is the firing the conventional left to right sweep, what are the limits to the sweep, is it a relatively rigid firing pattern, is there a regular timing to the sweep, does it hesitate, is it predictable, is it tracer fire so that the origin can be located, is it infantry or mechanized (guess), are engines in gear or starting up, if engines are running is the sound coming closer or is it going back and forth (the Germans used to start tank engines and race them hoping to scare us [it didn't]).

React: How can I take out the enemy? How can I get him before he gets me? Where is his vulnerability? What kind of fire can I ask to be laid down? Who can help? Whom can I call to and communicate what can be done? How can I exploit his rather regular patterns?

• One time in an attack where we were pinned down I jumped into the shell hole filled with water. I noticed that the German machine gun fire did not go beyond a certain point in the hill on our left flank. I hollered back to Lt. Winters that there was a way out. He hollered back "OK, lead us out". I turned around, ran back to the ditch below a dirt road and lead the company out of the field by going to the extreme left of the sweep of the fire. It worked. The ditch was my defilade.
• Another time I noticed that there was a lull in the German machine gun fire at a particular point in the front line. I had the impression that the enemy fire was lightening up. I decided to chance it and ran towards the German machine gun fire. They were in the process of pulling out when I caught up to them and captured them.
• Lt. Winters told me to secure our left flank after others refused to do so. I started to count the seconds for the incoming machine gun fire on that flank. The Germans were sweeping back and forth fairly regularly and when they got to the mid point of the reverse sweep I got up, ran and secured the left flank.
• German artillery shelling was heavy and consistent. It was coming right at us but I noticed that it had a right bias to it (looking down) as it marched up the hill. I called out to Lt. Winters that we should move to the left and screamed at him why. He ordered the company to move left. The fire marched up the hill on our right and no one was killed or wounded. Lt. Winters then ordered us forward, which we did, and received no enemy fire.
• We were crossing a field. I was the forward scout. On my left was the Executive Officer of the Company (the CO had been killed). He was about 25 feet off my left and slightly behind me. German artillery and mortar fire started to come in rather heavily but it was about 100 yards to the left of the Exec. The Germans were firing, most obviously, by map coordinates and not by direct observation (or the direct observation was quite a distance away). We veered to the right and continued our walk across the field with no harm. We got to relative safety with no casualties.

The New York Times did their best to discredit me on my 1990 run for Governor against Mario Cuomo on everything I accomplished in my life. They interviewed my combat buddy Henry Wick (Wojcicki) and concentrated on trying to discredit my Bronze Star decoration. They asked Henry if he saw me knock out machine gun nests.

He answered "No, I was keeping my head down but he was a 'can do' kind of guy".

I never panicked, never was terrified, never felt that I should do my damndest to get out of combat. I know more than a few who are still alive and well who were just like me. We were there to defeat the enemy and that was what we did.

My friend, Neal Burdette, was one of them. A tech sergeant named James Haahr was another (both belonged to the 101st Regiment of the 26th Infantry Division). My Lt. Winters ( now deceased) was another. My platoon sergeant, Charlie Kos (now deceased) was another as was my buddy, Henry (Wojcicki) Wick.

Burdette, Haahr, Wick and I were ASTP students and we did most honorable and venerable service for our regiment and country. We did our job as professionals (even though we were all amateurs; Burdette, Wick, myself and Haahr came out of ASTP and Winters was a bus driver in civilian life [I do not know what Charlie Kos did, he was not ASTP] ).

I was truly lucky since my only real physical wound was a million dollar wound.

I had run forward in an attack, hit the ground and rolled over with my left knee in the air. I got hit by a minute (one/one and a half inch) piece of spent shrapnel which barely penetrated my left knee (days out of combat, eating well and looking at the nurses walk by).

I never got hit by a bullet, never had an important wound of any kind, never lost anything of bodily importance.

I was taken out, finally, by something that the Army could have avoided.

After months in the wet and the cold I got trench feet and could not walk. I had not removed or undone my shoes (shoes and not boots) for about a month and my feet swelled up to about three times their normal size and had turned almost black (the shoes were no damn good and when we got combat boots it was too late).

"I also noted in 'The Lorraine Campaign' a lot of pictures taken of American troops in mid-November in combat conditions in the rain and mud at that time and everyone of them shows the infantry (armored or otherwise) wearing leggings and not combat boots, as you point out. Best regards,"

(The above exact quote (I added the apostrophe after the word 'boots' in the last sentence) is from a GI who served with honor with the 101st Infantry regiment of the 26th Infantry Division in WW2 at the same time I did. Earlier on he had told me that I was wrong; we did have combat boots. He has enough integrity and honor to realize the truth and I must say I feel vindicated since a critic of my positions on combat has become a supporter!)

It was very late in December, 1944 when the medics took me out of action and sent me back to a Base hospital.

It was later in a hospital in the UK (outside of London) that that the doctors diagnosed my hearing as permanently damaged (both ears are scarred) and when I requested to rejoin my Division they refused saying if I did I would be permanently deaf.

Note: I was told by our CO that I would get the Silver Star (in addition to the Bronze Star about which I knew nothing) but I never did. That and a token get me into the subway or on a bus.

This is one of six articles on my infantry experience in World War 2.

For access to all those articles go here!