Morale

Combat soldiers experience varying degrees of emotions during their service. What initially drives a soldier to enlist is constantly shaped and changed by the physical, inherent, and material conditions the soldier faces during combat. Therefore, the larger events of the war such as battles, public opinion, and conditions affect individual soldiers and their overall motivation. The morale of soldiers is constantly in flux as several factors, both in the larger scope and at a microlevel usually known as the unit, affects their purpose and will to fight. According to the U.S. Army, morale is defined as the mental, emotional, and spiritual state of the individual. It is how he or she feels happy, hopeful, confident, appreciated, worthless, sad, unrecognized, or depressed. Collectively, psychologists, historians, and ...