Motivation in U.S. narrative accounts of the ground war in Vietnam

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 28, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 7-31

  Vaughan, David K ^a   Schum, William A ^b  

^a SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY   (Oman)

^b Air Force Materiel Command   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035566275     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X0102800102     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 33.
2. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man (New York: Russell Sage, 1970); Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982); Anthony Kellett, "Combat Motivation," in Contemporary Studies in Combat Psychiatry, ed. Gregory Belenky (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 205-232; Samuel A. Stouffer, A. A. Lumsdaine, M. H. Lumsdaine, R. M. Williams, Jr., M. B. Smith, I. L. Janis, S. A. Star, and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Douglas J. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat: A Comparison of German and American Soldiers in World War II Using Content Analysis. Master's Thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base OH, 1995.
3. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man (New York: Russell Sage, 1970); Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982); Anthony Kellett, "Combat Motivation," in Contemporary Studies in Combat Psychiatry, ed. Gregory Belenky (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 205-232; Samuel A. Stouffer, A. A. Lumsdaine, M. H. Lumsdaine, R. M. Williams, Jr., M. B. Smith, I. L. Janis, S. A. Star, and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Douglas J. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat: A Comparison of German and American Soldiers in World War II Using Content Analysis. Master's Thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base OH, 1995.
4. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man (New York: Russell Sage, 1970); Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982); Anthony Kellett, "Combat Motivation," in Contemporary Studies in Combat Psychiatry, ed. Gregory Belenky (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 205-232; Samuel A. Stouffer, A. A. Lumsdaine, M. H. Lumsdaine, R. M. Williams, Jr., M. B. Smith, I. L. Janis, S. A. Star, and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Douglas J. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat: A Comparison of German and American Soldiers in World War II Using Content Analysis. Master's Thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base OH, 1995.
5. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man (New York: Russell Sage, 1970); Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982); Anthony Kellett, "Combat Motivation," in Contemporary Studies in Combat Psychiatry, ed. Gregory Belenky (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 205-232; Samuel A. Stouffer, A. A. Lumsdaine, M. H. Lumsdaine, R. M. Williams, Jr., M. B. Smith, I. L. Janis, S. A. Star, and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Douglas J. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat: A Comparison of German and American Soldiers in World War II Using Content Analysis. Master's Thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base OH, 1995.
6. Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man (New York: Russell Sage, 1970); Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1982); Anthony Kellett, "Combat Motivation," in Contemporary Studies in Combat Psychiatry, ed. Gregory Belenky (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 205-232; Samuel A. Stouffer, A. A. Lumsdaine, M. H. Lumsdaine, R. M. Williams, Jr., M. B. Smith, I. L. Janis, S. A. Star, and L. S. Cottrell, Jr., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949); Douglas J. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat: A Comparison of German and American Soldiers in World War II Using Content Analysis. Master's Thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base OH, 1995.
7. Kellert, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle, 320.
8. Moskos, The American Enlisted Man, 135.
9. Ibid., 147.
10. Kellett, Combat Motivation: The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle, 326-327.
11. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier, 119.
12. Kellett, "Combat Motivation," 220.
13. Traversa, Motivational Factors in Combat, 35.
14. Ibid., 37.
15. Ibid., 38.
16. Kellett, Combat Motivation, 324.
17. Kellett, "Combat Motivation," 224.
18. See O. R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading MA: Addison-Wesley. 1969). Holsti defines content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages," 14.
19. As each combat narrative was read, references to motivational factors were recorded. Discrete expressions constituted a reference, but these expressions could take the form of a phrase, sentence, or paragraph. A reference in the combat narrative must have shown a correspondence to a motivational factor through the identification criteria listed. Any factor that comprised 25 percent or more of the total references was considered to be a primary factor. Any motivational factor that did not exceed a percentage rating of 25 percent and was greater than 0 percent was considered a secondary factor. However, factors comprising less than 25 percent of the reference total were subjected to a qualitative judgment to identify additional primary factors. To illustrate, a combat narrative might include only two or three references to religious convictions, so that the "religion" factor might have a correspondingly low percentage rating. Yet the author of the narrative may have explained that his religious faith sustained him in the performance of his duty. In this example, qualitative analysis would determine that strong emphasis on religious belief renders it a primary and not a secondary factor. Holsti argues that "content analysis should use qualitative and quantitative methods to supplement each other," 11.
20. Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963), 219.
21. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), 139.
22. Stephen Yedinak, Hard to Forget (New York: Ivy Books, 1998), 69.
23. Frederick Downs, The Killing Zone (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978), 42.
24. Ibid., 149.
25. Richard A. Guidry, The War in I Corps (New York: Ivy Books, 1998), 44.
26. Ibid., 138.
27. Dennis Kitchin, War in Aquarius: Memoir of an American Infantryman in Action along the Cambodian Border during the Vietnam War (Jefferson NC: McFarland and Company, 1994), 151.
28. Ibid., 68.
29. David Donovan, Once a Warrior King: Memories of an Officer in Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 265.
30. Michael C. Hodgins, Reluctant Warrior (New York: Ivy Books, 1996), 75.