Reviewed by: In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History, and: Battle Exhortation: The Rhetoric of Combat Leadership Gary P. Cox In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History.By Richard F. Miller. Hanover N. H. & London: University Press of New England, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58465-731-6. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 424. $35.00. Battle Exhortation: The Rhetoric of Combat Leadership.By Keith Yellin. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-57003-735-1. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xi, 191. $34.95. [End Page 934] There is perhaps one almost universal convention of pre-combat, a thread that binds Spartan hoplites to Marines putting "boots on the ground" in Iraq: the commander's need—real or perceived?—to inspire or comfort those about to enter into the "valley of the shadow…." Most often this seems to have been done in speech. Find a battle, great or small, and inevitably the survivors will recount the "speechifying" of some authority figure who sought to steel his troopers for what was to come. Two new books seek to address the ancient convention of "battle speech." Each offers insights into the phenomenon of combat oratory. Neither is, strictly speaking, a history book. Instead these are works analyzing combat rhetoric across twenty-five centuries of combat. Both have been written more for students of communications, and potential combat leaders, than for historians, although they offer important insights for the military historian as well. Battle Exhortationis the more narrowly focused work. The work's center is American battle speech—although it does sample from the Classical and the Anglo-Saxon world. Written by former Marine captain Keith Yellin, the text in four crisp chapters identifies the peculiar oral genre elicited by battle, illustrates how the auditors of combat oratory have been socialized to understand the conventions of this type of address—the author's "G.I. roots" are never better revealed than in his use of actor Bill Murray's caricature of battle speech in the 1981 film Stripesto illustrate just how pervasive and natural are the unifying ideas at the heart of pre-combat rhetoric. Perhaps the volume's most interesting chapter identifies important "tensions" that commanders seek to manage. By "tensions," the author seems to mean certain issues that must be controlled and articulated to just the right "pitch": too much "tension" and the unit "snaps"; too little and it grows slack and weak. These tensions include "managing reputation"—not asking a unit to do too much—or suggesting that what it must do is too easy; the need to "manage [the] distance" between the commander and his troops; the need to "manage violence," getting soldiers to do the deadly business of combat with controlled ferocity; the need to cultivate love for a commander through high expectations, strict standards, fear of punishment, and real rewards. Finally, the author discusses modern "battle speeches" of the last sixty years. Emphasis here is placed at the theater-level of command, comparing the addresses of Eisenhower, Westmoreland, Schwarzkopf, and Franks. Such command messages, the book concludes, have for important reasons—not least the "loss of privacy" on the battlefield because of an ubiquitous press—become less about inflicting violence and defeat on the enemy, and more about soothing assurances of righteous victory. More dubious is the book's assertion that the American services are encouraged differently: ground troops by battle cries; airmen by checklists; sailors by shipboard newscasts (p. 143). The aircrews I was privileged to brief three decades ago were not inspired by checklists. In Words and Deeds, by Richard F. Miller, is the more encyclopedic work. Miller, though neither a professional historian nor a military man, has published [End Page 935]on the Civil War, and served several tours as an embedded reporter during the Iraq War. He defines the term "battle speech" most widely in order to deal with recruiting speeches, instructional speeches, pre-invasion, pre-, mid-, and post-battle addresses, and concludes with an examination of assumption of command, farewell, surrender, and final victory speeches. As befits his lawyerly background, the author seeks to identify and categorize the various "conventions" common in such presentations. Words and...