Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant “paying off of old scores”; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called — instead of horse- or bull- or elephant-shit — because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously. Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

Paul Fussell (1924-2012) American cultural and literary historian, author, academic
“Chickenshit: An Anatomy,” Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (1989)
    (Source)

Sometimes misattributed to historian Stephen Ambrose, who used part of it (with attribution) in his Band of Brothers (1992).

 
Added on 4-Aug-21 | Last updated 4-Aug-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , ,
More quotes by Fussell, Paul

Thoughts? Comments? Corrections? Feedback?