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According to Paul Fussel's book "Wartime," "Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant 'paying off of old scores'; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called--instead of horse- or bull- or elephant shit--because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously." This definition is cited by at least two books by Steven E. Ambrose, "Citizen Soldiers" and "Band of Brothers."
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