Carl Remick wrote:
>
> This is from the NY Times review of Kaplan's book yesterday:]
>
> ... [I]t turns out we've been too thrifty with our troops; to prevail in the
> war on terror, he [Kaplan] advises, we ought to become more tolerant of
> American casualties. So what's the holdup? "It was the elites that had a
> more difficult time with the deaths of soldiers and marines." Their concern
> is misplaced. The grunts have an "unpretentious willingness to die," which
> is in part "the product of their working-class origins. The working classes
> had always been accustomed to rough, unfair lives and turns." ...
Pericles argued that the Athenians could stand hardship better than the Spartans, because the relatively soft life of the Athenians gave them a motive to fight hard to preserve it. And (vague memory of a book I read back in 1945 or '46): the experience of the military was that for posts of protracted hardship (arctic radio stations, submarine duty, etc) those who could most tolerate the conditions were those from relatively 'soft' backgrounds, while those whose civilian life was one of hardship were less able/willing to suffer hardship of that sort in the military.
A friend was on a PT boat commanded by a Vanderbilt -- who almost got them all killed because he disobeyed orders against a certain risk in the hope of winning a Congressional Medal.
Carrol
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/books/review/27lipsky.html?pagewanted=all>
>
> Carl
>
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