Have Yourself a Non-Warrior Little Christmas

--A Charlie Brown Christmas 

I got to keep my image
While suspended from a throne
That looks out upon a kingdom
Full of people all unknown 
--I'm a Man,
Spencer Davis Group

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight 
--Merry Little Christmas 

He who, conscious of being strong,
is content to be weak,
He shall be the paragon of mankind

--Lao Tze   

I've got to leave before I start to scream
But someone locked the door and took the key
You feelin' alright
I'm not feelin' too good myself 
--Feelin' Alright, Joe Cocker
 ____________________

As an extension of the previous post (God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen), the labels and identity of our soldiers -- both external and internal -- is a confused matter, adding to the fragmentation that many feel after their service.

The U.S. Army's Soldier's Creed morphed into a Warrior Ethos creed in 2003, and the oath is now a confused amalgam of the two concepts. A dialog on the topic began at the now-defunct site, "IntelDump", and Ranger will attempt his own definition via comparison now. (We also invite original participants and friends FDChief and Publius to continue in the discussion):

A soldier is conflicted by his wartime memories; a warrior exalts in them.

A soldier is shamed by violence; a warrior takes pride in and is defined by his violence.

A soldier fights to end wars; a warrior revels in them.

A soldier fights for humanity, and a warrior, for glory.

A soldier fights for country; a warrior, for his master and/or profit.

A soldier suppresses his memories; a warrior revels in them.

A soldier is self-effacing and humble; a warrior, brash and prideful.

A soldier values life; a warrior, only the life of  his leader.

A soldier fights as a team member; a warrior fights solo [this idea is confused in the 2003 Soldier's Creed, which states, "A warrior fights as part of a team.]

A soldier fights for duty; a warrior sees the fight as the end game.

A soldier's job is discrete and ends with the completion of the mission; a warrior accepts endless war as a way of life.

A soldier retains his humanity; a warrior tortures, takes hostages and assassinates.

A soldier is repelled by the suffering he inflicts; a warrior glories in carnage.

A soldier kills to fulfill a realistic objective; a warrior kills for no purpose beyond the kill.

A soldier tells his story with regret and humility; a warrior composes odes to the violence.

A soldier is mission-oriented, his acts conscribed by law; a warrior is lawless, unbound by civilized thought.

A soldier is committed to his community; a warrior, to his violence.

A soldier's life is not war; a warrior's life is war.

A soldier's death is lamentable; a warrior's death is meaningless.

A soldier acknowledges his weakness; a warrior destroys weakness.

A soldier respects law and authority; a warrior operates outside of the law, and has no restraint.

A soldier mourns the death of his enemy; a warrior kills sans remorse.

A soldier seeks to protect women and children; a warrior inflicts suffering on all, without discretion.

A soldier gives; a warrior takes.

A soldier fights in spite of his leader's lies; a warrior fights for his leader's lies.

A soldier does not endeavor to be a warrior; a warrior may never be a soldier.

Soldiers love; warriors, hate.

A democracy needs soldiers; an autocracy needs warriors.

Soldiers want their children to never know war; warriors raise their children to fight.

Soldiers bury the dead; warriors defile the dead.

Soldiers have sympathy; warriors extinguish their sympathy.

Soldiers defend civilization; warriors destroy civilization.

Historically, those sent into battle were kept apart from the general population for varying periods of time. The Greeks saw the fighting class as unfit for family life. After a probationary period as a soldier, some of these men could then enter the political arena. The Japanese Samurai was the prototypical lone wolf, an entity removed from and unruled by the constricts of his society.

Our Native American societies performed rituals to allow those returning from battle to become eligible to re-enter society. Reader MinstrelBoy, of White Mountain Apache background, explained that process here at RAW. Upon his return from serving in Vietnam, he partook of such a ceremony to assist him in his transition, and felt that the lack of such a passage for most soldiers leaves them with an open psychic wound.

This is not comprehensive, and your views are solicited.

Merry Christmas.

Peace Through Superior Firepower

If you want to make peace,
you don't talk to your friends.
You talk to your enemies
--Moshe Dayan

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied
straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe
--Reason to Believe, Tim Hardin

Whatever gets you to the light 'salright, 'salright
Out the blue or out of sight 'salright, 'salright
Don't need a gun to blow your mind oh no, oh no
--Whatever Gets You Through the Night,
John Lennon

_________________

This is a re-visitation of Sniper School prompted by reader Blackhawk's cogent comments.

Ranger saw a car decal yesterday which featured a B-52 aircraft laden with bombs configured as the Peace symbol with the caption, "Peace -- Through Traditional Means", which means bombing people into the hereafter. On the same window was the Jesus fish.

The stickers were diametrically opposed, but that person had integrated them in an attempt to make meaning in a world of conflicting messages. At least, that's my best-case assessment.

So it is with Blackhawk's position vis-a-vis mine. It is possible we are saying the same thing. I am saying we must maintain our "humanity", but really I mean our "sanity". We protect our humanity by preserving or clinging to threads of sanity. This is a often futile effort as sanity and humanity are rare qualities in our conflictual society.

Our histories are often exercises in self-deception and delusional thinking for the purpose of forming a cohesive story, one with purpose, direction and intent. Like the person sporting the opposing stickers, believing in both antithetical ideas separately would lead to conflict; however, if he can wed the ideas, he can create a new thing -- a cohesive tableau in which one idea supports or results in the other. We feel sensible once we make that synthesis, no matter what contortions.

Slavery -- exploited by both the North and the South -- also did not jibe with the Christian imperative, but we justified it by pro-rating the value of men of color. The same juggling was performed with the idea of pirates.

Early pirates were sanctioned as Privateers. We then built an economy based upon slavery and piracy, yet now we kill pathetic Somali petty pirates doing what we once did as a matter of policy. It is situational ethics: Sometimes a bad thing can be called a "good", especially when it furthers our own agenda. People do not do what they should do or have to do -- people do what they WANT to do.

The point is that we have two standards of conduct which breeds irrationality and riven thinking which permeates all aspects of our lives. When Ranger says we must retain our humanity even in war, perhaps he too has succumbed to the insanity, for killing is not humane.

We all do what we must to get out of bed in the morning. We all have personal survival techniques, and mine is the belief in humanity despite evidence to the contrary. It's a loose grip, at best.

Survivor Values

--Jews being rounded up in the Warsaw Ghetto (4/43)
for deportation to Nazi death camp

Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers
to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…
the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions
--Primo Levi

Live as if you were living a second time,
and as though you had acted wrongly the first time
--Victor Frankl

[we must raise people] so as both to delight in
and to be pained by the things that we ought
--Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis
where you don't address reality
--Juan Williams, on the Bill O'Reilly program
_________________

Let it never be said that RAW suffers such paralysis.

A strangeness has settled over America, making moral navigation hazardous. A recent television promo for the program "Survivor" was unsettling and a harbinger of ill.

The group has a young woman with an artificial, hi-tech prosthetic limb being jumped and wrestled to the ground by a pretty African American lass who says she will do anything to win, to include ripping the limb off her opponent.

We realize this is Hollywood, but that substitutes for many a life in the U.S. today. So, is that what being a survivor is all about -- winning at any cost? Did survivors of death camps persist because they became savages, or because they retained their humanity? Do combat soldiers survive because they became animals, or because they cohere around the shared goal of survival?

"Fierce" is the new hot word for that supposed-survivor's attitude. Co-opted from the gay male fashion scene to describe unusual quality, it is now back to its more animal meaning, ferocious. It is not so much "brave", but it sits in for that quality. It brings with it its runway roots: catty, cut-throat, to seem the best via outrageousness or bravado.

The survivor's comment suggests a new direction in American social evolution. Have we come so far that anything justifies winning? And have we come so far that watching this inhumanity is called entertainment, one which obviously appeals to the mass audience of reality television.

If this is reality, I'd rather be in a monkey cage.