Are You a Warrior, Too?

--Unstable Yellow Pigs,
Olaf Breuning

All life is a blur of Republicans and meat!
--Zippy the Pinhead

I am a sick man . . .
I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man.
I think there is something wrong with my liver
--Notes from the Underground,
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets.
The wars of peoples will be more terrible
than the wars of kings
--Winston Churchill

Fuck my shit.
That's what war adds up to
--Ernie Pyle
_________________

Warriorhood has been establishing itself in our pleasant democracy lately, both in military and entertainment circles.

Michael Hastings writes in his recent book "The Operators", General McChrystal "appeared to represent a new kind of military elite, a member of a warrior class that had lost touch with the civilian world" (and vice versa, p. 74). Yet less than a lifetime ago, keen Infantry observer Ernie Pyle wrote, "They were really the hunters, but they looked like the hunted. They weren't warriors. They were American boys who by mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands, sneaking up a death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country in a driving rain. They were afraid but it was beyond their power to quit. They had no choice."

Archaeology Magazine ("The Gladiator Diet,"April 2012) mentions that gladiators were called "warriors", though they had no war-fighting functions. (Though often captured warriors, their actions were now constricted by the rink for entertainment purposes alone.) Gladiators fought for no higher good than to do the bidding of their masters and to amuse the crowds. Their deaths were gore fests, with tools of brutality often exclusive to the fighting ring. Among various gladiatorial weapons used only in the arena was the trident -- now a symbol on the elite Navy SEALs badge.

Have we morphed our soldiers into warriors because we see them as providing us gladiatorial entertainment? How do we benefit as a society by calling our soldiers "warriors"?

Does this indicated a regression to a more primitive state?

_______________

And a Monday poem:

Ready to Kill

by Carl Sandburg

TEN minutes now I have been looking at this.
I have gone by here before and wondered about it.
This is a bronze memorial of a famous general
Riding horseback with a flag and a sword and a revolver
on him.

I want to smash the whole thing into a pile of junk to be
hauled away to the scrap yard.

I put it straight to you,

After the farmer, the miner, the shop man, the factory
hand, the fireman and the teamster,
Have all been remembered with bronze memorials,
Shaping them on the job of getting all of us
Something to eat and something to wear,

When they stack a few silhouettes
Against the sky
Here in the park,
And show the real huskies that are doing the work of
the world, and feeding people instead of butchering them,

Then maybe I will stand here
And look easy at this general of the army holding a flag
in the air,
And riding like hell on horseback
Ready to kill anybody that gets in his way,
Ready to run the red blood and slush the bowels of men
all over the sweet new grass of the prairie.

Getting Braver All the Time

Suffers who suffer all
Can swim upon the desert
Where avarice have ravaged all
In spite of good intentions
-- Seven Deadly Sins, Flogging Molly
______________

The Purple Heart Magazine (May/June) ran Ranger's Letter to the Editor in opposition to the use of the term "warrior" to describe today's soldiers.

This is no small thing. We noticed the liberalization beginning in June of 2007 when Gary Kurpius, national commander of the 2.4 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, backed recently released Marine Corps veteran Adam Kokesh in his right to protest the U.S.'s involvement in the Iraq war.

It amounts to a sea change when the editorial arm of a military fraternal organization like the MOPH is willing to publish opposition to an accepted ooh-rah stance. The letter is reprinted below:

Editor:

The last issue reports the MOPH [Military Order of the Purple Heart] organization issued Sen. Jim Webb a special leadership award this year for, among other things, his legislation to create a new G.I. Bill. “Webb’s legislation . . . will make it possible for today’s young warriors and their families to live the American dream.” (Purple Heart Magazine, Mar/Apr. ‘09).

Sen. Webb is a great advocate for veterans issues, though he has never referred to himself or our soldiers as “warriors” (aside from its use in the so-called “Wounded Warrior” Project.)

Unfortunately, the P.H. Magazine and by extension, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is endorsing a “warrior mentality” which is the opposite of the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

The American dream used to be peace and prosperity and adherence to a set of core values. Both the concept of being a warrior and arriving at the American dream through warfare are gross distortions of the concept of a democracy.

George Washington, the originator of the Purple Heart, never branded himself or his soldiers as warriors. Like the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington fought only in a defensive posture. This is not the stance of the warrior. Washington left office warning of the dangers of entangling foreign alliances.

We have run afoul of his vision.

Respectfully,

Jim Hruska

Road Warriors

Valhalla, 17th c. depiction

In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail

--Don't Give Up, Peter Gabriel

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine.
It is only those who have neither fired a shot
nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded
who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell

--William Tecumseh Sherman

The pain of war cannot exceed
The woe of aftermath

--Battle of Evermore, Led Zeppelin

Max: I'm just here for the gasoline

--Mad Max II, The Road Warrior (1981)

__________

Definition of ''warrior'' :

''A man engaged in or experienced in warfare, and especially in primitive warfare or the close-combat typical of ancient or medieval times. A person of demonstrate courage, fortitude, zeal or pugnacity. An advocate of war.''--Webster's 3rd International Dictionary

''A person habitually engaged in combat. In tribal societies, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare; peasants may be called to fight, as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people may be considered warriors.''

Lately the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Pace and all his little warrior buddies invoke rhetoric of the warrior as a U.S. military value. In addition, the Walter Reed Army Hospital has a new name--the Wounded Warrior Facility. Wrap that around your tongue--Wounded Warrior. It almost makes your pecker hard just saying it. (And for an old soldier, that's quite a feat in itself.)

Now, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Geronimo--those were warriors. Warriors always fulfilled a need in primitive societies to protect the non-warriors. As such, they stood apart from the general society and occupied a place of honor, and were treated with awe and respect. These men lived only to fight and die so that the tribe could survive. That was then.

This is now. A soldier is a needed, and should be respected, vocation. Soldiers fight, kill and/or die, and possibly are severely wounded performing their function. This is when they must fight

I wore crossed rifles in time of war and never, ever, in my wildest imagination considered myself a warrior.

I volunteered for the regular Army, the Airborne, the Infantry, Ranger and Special Forces. I further volunteered for RVN, but never did I consider myself a warrior. I did these things because they were necessary, and not because the warrior battle cry beckoned.

All reasonable soldiers fight reluctantly, and those that revel in war are indeed material for serious abnormal psychological studies.

Soldiers are representatives of a society and reflect the values of that society. Warriors stand apart and adopt values separate and deviant from the general population. Most citizens are fearful of actual combat veterans--indeed warriors would provoke an even greater discomfort.

So why is the Department of Defense creating a new climate that embraces warrior values? Every true hero hates killing and violence, but for a warrior it is just another day at the office.

Have we transitioned in our society from a citizen Army to a professional volunteer force, into a warrior class?

Soldiers do not torture. What about warriors? Think Geronimo. Think Apache. Think capture. Is this the appropriate U.S. response to the terror threat?

Let's slip over to the Wounded Warrior Center at Walter Reed. Generally these personnel are so FUBAR'd that they will never return to active duty service. After stabilization, they will be dumped on the Department of Veterans Affairs and will never be soldiers again. So how are they served by being called ''Wounded Warriors''?

Hell, the VA won't even address you by your rank if you are retired or medically retired.

Question: ''What do you call a wounded warrior once the DVA inherits them?
Answer: ''Mister.''

So where do wounded warriors go? To the civilian VA. It would serve their successful transition to accustom them to this fact before they get shocked by reality.

Our society does not need warriors, nor do we need a warrior class or culture. What we need are soldiers sharing the values of liberty and justice for all. That does not mean killing everybody who disagrees with or resists our all-encompassing love.

Calling military personnel warriors is another way of justifying repeated frequent useless combat tours and forced separation from families. On a more insidious level, it is a way to acclimate a society to the permanent emplacement of a warrior caste in their midst.

More subversive yet: Warriors are made to fight and die. He may be mourned, but it will be for fulfilling his destiny. Like Odin's warriors, he will be feted at Valhalla where crossed swords serve as roof beams. So, the loss of a warrior will not be felt as deeply on a human level as he is already separated from society by virtue of his designation. He deals in death, so he has one foot in the grave already.

Warriors are impervious to hardship; soldiers aren't.