Your mentioning the 20% of soldiers is actually an improvement over earlier conflicts. John Keegan, one of the best military historians ever, describes (in his "History of Warfare," I believe) how the US embedded an historian in the Normandy landing. The number at that time (as I recall) was well over 50% never fired their weapon. It takes a staggering amount of constant training for muscle memory to take over and to fire a weapon in a deadly force situation.
I’ve known people who’ve been in combat describe the noise, chaos, fear, and sensory overload as being almost too much to process. I can see where an inexperienced soldier would have difficulty allowing their training to take over.
Your mentioning the 20% of soldiers is actually an improvement over earlier conflicts. John Keegan, one of the best military historians ever, describes (in his "History of Warfare," I believe) how the US embedded an historian in the Normandy landing. The number at that time (as I recall) was well over 50% never fired their weapon. It takes a staggering amount of constant training for muscle memory to take over and to fire a weapon in a deadly force situation.
I’ve known people who’ve been in combat describe the noise, chaos, fear, and sensory overload as being almost too much to process. I can see where an inexperienced soldier would have difficulty allowing their training to take over.