Question: What Texan was the U.S. Army’s chief combat historian during World War II and the Korean War?
Answer: Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, also known as SLAM. Born in New York in 1900, he attended high school in El Paso before enlisting in the Army in 1917. After World War I, he attended what is now the University of Texas at El Paso and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. In 1940, he published an analysis of the Nazi strategy of “blitzkrieg,” which was employed during the invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Following the United States’ entry into World War II, Marshall rejoined the Army and eventually became its chief combat historian. His controversial claim that 75% of infantryman never fired their rifle when engaged in combat led to training reforms within the military. Marshall died in 1977 and is buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery.
