Editing Soldier (section)

===Enlistment===
Soldiers in war may have various [[motivation]]s for voluntarily enlisting and remaining in an army or other armed forces branch. In a study of 18th century soldiers' written records about their time in service, historian Ilya Berkovich suggests "three primary 'levers' of motivation ...  'coercive', 'remunerative', and 'normative' incentives."<ref name="Cozens2017">{{Cite web |last=Cozens |first=Joe |date=October 2017 |title=review of Motivation in War: The Experience of Common Soldiers in Old-Regime Europe |url=https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/2183 |access-date=January 31, 2023 |website=Reviews in History}}</ref>  Berkovich argues that historians' assumptions that fear of coercive force kept unwilling conscripts in check and controlled rates of [[desertion]] have been overstated and that any pay or other [[remuneration]] for service as provided then would have been an insufficient incentive. Instead, "[[Ancien Régime|old-regime]] common soldiers should be viewed primarily as willing participants who saw themselves as engaged in a distinct and honourable activity."<ref name="Cozens2017" /> In [[Modern era|modern]] times, soldiers have volunteered for armed service, especially in time of war, out of a sense of patriotic duty to their [[homeland]] or to advance a social, political, or [[Ideology|ideological]] cause, while improved levels of remuneration or training might be more of an incentive in times of economic hardship.  Soldiers might also enlist for personal reasons, such as following family or social expectations, or for the order and discipline provided by military training, as well as for the [[friendship]] and connection with their fellow soldiers afforded by close contact in a common enterprise.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15027570701755398|title=Comrades or Friends? On Friendship in the Armed Forces|first=Desiree|last=Verweij|date=December 6, 2007|journal=Journal of Military Ethics|volume=6|issue=4|pages=280–291|doi=10.1080/15027570701755398|s2cid=144653282 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/91782040|title=Will to Fight: Analyzing, Modeling, and Simulating the Will to Fight of Military Units|first1=Ben|last1=Connable|first2=Michael|last2=McNerney|first3=William|last3=Marcellino|first4=Aaron|last4=Frank|first5=Henry|last5=Hargrove|first6=Marek|last6=Posard|first7=S.|last7=Zimmerman|first8=Natasha|last8=Lander|first9=Jasen|last9=Castillo|first10=James|last10=Sladden|date=December 9, 2018|journal=RAND Corporation EBooks|quote=The second type of cohesion at the unit level is social cohesion. Mission accomplishment develops bonds. Social cohesion is bonding based on friendship, trust, and other aspects of interpersonal relationships. The essential argument here is that soldiers fight because of the close interpersonal bonds formed in their primary social group through shared experience and hardship. Social cohesion includes both horizontal (peer) and vertical (leader) bonds in the so-called standard model of military group cohesion.67 Some research on U.S. military forces after the Vietnam War questioned the primacy of social cohesion, but it is consistently emphasized in contemporary scholarship.68}}</ref>[[File:Indian Army soldiers and U.S. Army paratroopers evaluate a recently concluded simulated combat patrol at Fort Bragg, N.C..jpg|thumb|U.S. Army [[Paratrooper|paratroopers]] and [[Indian Army]] soldiers after a simulated [[patrol]], 2013]]

In 2018, the [[RAND Corporation]] published the results of a study of contemporary American soldiers in ''Life as a Private: A Study of the Motivations and Experiences of Junior Enlisted Personnel in the U.S. Army''. The study found that "soldiers join the Army for family, institutional, and occupational reasons, and many value the opportunity to become a military professional. They value their relationships with other soldiers, enjoy their social lives, and are satisfied with Army life."  However, the authors cautioned that the survey sample consisted of only 81 soldiers and that "the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the U.S. Army as a whole or to any rank."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Helmus |first1=Todd C. |url= https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2252.html |title=Life as a Private: A Study of the Motivations and Experiences of Junior Enlisted Personnel in the U.S. Army. |last2=Zimmerman |first2=S. Rebecca |last3=Posard |first3=Marek M. |last4=Wheeler |first4=Jasmine L. |last5=Ogletree |first5=Cordaye |last6=Stroud |first6=Quenton |last7=Harrell |first7=Margaret C. |publisher=RAND Corporation |year=2018|access-date = August 11, 2014}}</ref>