From: Monte Davis 

"John Beamish"  wrote:

>The troops of most standing armies throughout the world have little/no
>experience in combat.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes -- and armies vary, by era as well as by nation, in the quality of
their institutional memory. A great general-staff tradition can be crippled
by poor methods for retaining (and listening to) career NCOs, and vice
versa.

Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805062882/103-6678184-3700666?v=
glance

stands out in semi-pop military history because it doesn't try to gloss
over just how bad the US performance in North Africa 1942-43 was at first.
Don't take Dieppe too personally -- we did it to ourselves several times
there... :-(

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