The word soldier originally meant someone who fights for a coin
Soldier descends, through Old French words for a mercenary and a shilling's wage, from the solidus, a Roman gold coin used in Byzantium. Being paid is baked into the name. Yet one historian who studied eighteenth-century troops concluded that neither wages nor fear explain why most of them stayed in the ranks.
Anyone who belongs to an army counts as a soldier, whether conscript or volunteer, private, sergeant, warrant officer or general. Specialists pick up their own labels: sapper, grenadier, signaller, medic, gunner. Some of these are centuries old, others arrived with new technology and a finer division of labour. The US Army files each job as a Military Occupational Specialty, while British military police are nicknamed red caps for their headgear.
Slang tracks history. American infantry of the First World War era were Doughboys; G.I., short for Government Issue, took over during and after the Second. British foot soldiers were Tommies, after the archetypal Tommy Atkins, and the French called theirs Poilus, the hairy ones. Artillery crews in the US Army are redlegs, from the branch colour, and infantry are grunts, or squaddies in Britain.
Who may serve has changed too. Infantry service was long almost entirely male, but by the Second World War women served widely in Allied forces, some Soviet women being named Heroes of the Soviet Union, and Britain and the United States created separate women's corps that were later folded into the regular branches, though combat roles often stayed restricted. In the United States, Black soldiers fought in the Union Army, and after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation in Black units; segregated service continued, with some units known as Buffalo Soldiers, until President Harry S. Truman ordered desegregation of the armed forces in 1948.
Motivation is the most interesting puzzle. Historian Ilya Berkovich identified coercive, financial and normative levers, and argued that old-regime troops were mostly willing participants who saw soldiering as honourable work. Modern volunteers cite patriotism, causes, pay in hard times, family expectation, discipline and comradeship. A 2018 RAND study found junior US soldiers valued their relationships and were content with army life, while cautioning that it surveyed only 81 people. American men aged 18 to 25 must still register with the Selective Service System, although no draft has been held since 1973.
Source: Soldier
