[6] The United States military codes of justice define cowardice in combat as a crime punishable by death.
British soldiers executed for cowardice were often not commemorated on war memorials, and their families often did not receive benefits and had to endure social stigma.
[8][9] However, many decades later, those soldiers all received posthumous pardons in the UK Armed Forces Act 2006 and have been commemorated with the Shot at Dawn Memorial.
Marshall, who claimed that 75% of U.S. combat troops in World War II never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even while under direct threat.
Marshall's findings were later challenged as mistaken or even fabricated,[11][12][13] and were not replicated in a more rigorous study of Canadian troops in World War II.