Because it was desired to control the influence of education, AGCT score, age and marital condition on performance and to evaluate the relationship between attitudes and combat ratings with these background factors held constant, the sample was reduced to 279 cases in the process of matching the three performance groups on these background factors.

Attitudes Relating to Combat as Correlated with Combat Performance

In the initial attitude surveys at Camp Adair, four questions were asked:

Percentage giving indicated responses

Combat Performance Groups

"The foregoing charts indicate that the men rated above average in combat tended to show, during their training period-over a year before combat-atitudes with respect to combat which were superior from, the Army point-of -view, as compared with the other men. That is, they were more likely to manifest confidence they would perform satisfactorily in combat, they were more likely not to express anxiety about future injury in combat, and they were somewhat more likely to accept killing as their business. The attitude differences between the above and below average performance groups are consistent on all four items and are statistically significant on all items except that on killing Japanese."

"It is also of interest to note that corresponding attitude differences between above and below average combat performance groups, analyzed separately for the smaller sample of men who fought in line Infantry companies, tended to be even more marked than the differences charted. For example, in line companies of the 274th Infantry Regiment the proportion who said during training that they 'never' worried about combat injuries was 48% against 24% for the below average group."

"The better educated, the men with the highest AGCT scores and highest mechanical aptitude scores (120 or over) and over 24 years of age, the older men, and the married men tend to get the better performance ratings." 

"If we consider only men with high school education, relatively high AGCT (Class 1, II or III), relatively high mechanical aptitude (120 or over), and over 24 years of age at the time of the attitude survey (33 cases in all), we find that 58% are in the above average group on combat performance and 6% in the below average combat performance group. At the other extreme, if we take men with grade school education only, mechanical aptitude scores below 120, and under 24 years of age (58 cases in all), we find only 2 % rated above average in combat performance but 40% rated below average."

The findings in the remainder of this volume are based on data from divisions other than the 70th. While I found no real surprises, I have summarized what I found to be the more interesting data and I hope you find it of interest also:

Military units at division level and below carry close interpersonal ties, and serve two principal functions in combat motivation: Set and enforce group standards of behavior, and support and sustain the individual in stresses he would otherwise not have been able to withstand. The units enforced standards principally by offering or withholding recognition, respect and approval, which are among the supports they had to offer and the more subjective reward of following an internalized group code enhanced the soldier's resources for dealing with the situations that confronted him.

Masculinity and the Combat Soldier

The codes according to which a combat unit judged the behavior of its members, and in terms of which conformity was enforced was summed as: Be a man. While conceptions of masculinity vary among American groups, there is a common core: courage, endurance and toughness, lack of squeamishness when confronted with shocking or distasteful stimuli, avoiding a display of weakness, reticence about emotional or idealistic matters and sexual competency. Combat posed a challenge for a man to prove himself to himself and others. Combat was a dare. One could never be sure he could take it until he showed that he could.

Loyalty to Outfit and Pride in it

Loyalty to one's buddies and more generally to the outfit was another stringent group code. It is allied to the code of masculinity, but independent in the sense that someone who let his buddies down through irresponsibility, not cowardice, might not have his social manhood called into question. Loyalty to one's buddies were founded on the fact of mutual dependence and supported by the cluster of sentiments grouped under the term, "pride in outfit". Closely related to the code of group loyalty is the sentiment of pride in the outfit. It is involved in the loyalty code, for if a combat soldier were to disparage his outfit and its record, it would have been taken as disloyalty by his fellows. Also, the pride that a soldier, as a member of his outfit, could take in its accomplishments was one of the recompenses which supported him in his loyalty. Pride in his outfit was thus both an indication that the soldier had identified with his fighting unit and one of the forms in which this identification supported him in his combat role. It is therefore not surprising that the members of a veterans organization were typically more likely to be proud of their outfit than members of untried divisions.

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