the.com/soldier
a person trained to follow orders nobody sane would give themselves
means A person who serves in an army, trained to fight and to obey commands.
from From Old French 'soudier' or 'soldier,' a man who fights for pay — built on 'solde,' a soldier's wage, which traces back to Latin 'solidus,' a Roman gold coin. So at its root a soldier is simply someone paid: the coin came first, the courage came with the contract. The same 'solidus' gives us the modern Italian 'soldo' and 'soldi' (money), keeping the old truth alive — armies have always run on pay.
- oldest army
- Sparta drafted boys at seven, kept them till sixty
- foot toll
- trench foot disabled more WWI troops than bullets
- word root
- comes from solidus, the coin Romans used to pay them
- sleep debt
- combat troops average four broken hours a night
- march myth
- soldiers break step on bridges to avoid resonant collapse
private james ryan — fictional soldier from saving private ryan (1998), based on real wwii soldiers
sergeant alvin york — american wwi soldier who killed 25 germans and captured 132 at meuse-argonne offensive, 1918
audie murphy — most decorated us soldier in wwii with 33 medals, later became an actor