Basics of a Warrior Ethos
 

Basics of a Warrior Ethos
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By Col. Roderick Smith, USMCR (Ret)
Enthusiasm for the military life is a calling, not a job. It's based on the willingness to subordinate individual thoughts and concerns, including the concern to protect one's own life, for the good of the group and the mission. It's teamwork at its heart, and teamwork in its most complex form.

Such enthusiasm is gained by experience, self-discipline and camaraderie. Recruits rarely have it, although must hold the potential for it. Military recruits join their service for three primary reasons: (1) Membership-the opportunity to belong to a prideful organization and to show off that membership, (2) Challenge-the ability to undergo, endure and conquer physical and mental circumstances well beyond ordinary, daily life, and (3) Adventure-consistent with numbers 1 and 2 above, the opportunity to participate directly or vicariously in exciting, demanding and potentially dangerous activities. Service in the more "safe" military occupations-cooks, accountants, and administrators-must be viewed as valuable parts of the overall combat team, or they become mere civilian employment.

A military calling finds its core in the warrior's spirit?the desire to close with and kill your enemy; defeating his cause - all while operating under a code of honor and shared values. Any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine excelling in their occupation, but eschewing this warrior spirit, is merely a good, civil servant in uniform. Camaraderie, the ability to share this warrior's spirit with others undergoing substantially identical experiences and challenges, is the glue holding the system together.

Military pay must be present and sufficient to support the consistency of the system, and to provide for an appropriate level of lifestyle for rank attained. So long as fundamental fairness and ability to support oneself is maintained, attraction of pay is not a prime motivator to a calling.

How to weaken the Warrior ethos:

1. Encourage individuality and personal diversity while simultaneously trying to build a fighting team. A psychologist would call this dysfunctional behavior. Today, we call it an "Army of one". (Caveat here: I do NOT mean to cast a bad light on our brother service - the U.S. Army by restating that phrase. It's more a comment on the mindset and NOT the institution.)

2. Eliminate or denigrate physical training designed to enhance military performance and military "specific" activities, i.e. endurance marches, obstacle course maneuver, marksmanship, etc?

3. Affirm the notion that military duties can be likened to mere civilian jobs with uniforms, benefits, worker's compensation and salaries commensurate with other civilians.

4. Assure the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that duty, pride and honor are pass?. Our technology has made these so and technology is omnipotent and controlling.

5. Destroy team integrity through a lack of discipline and with public displays of favoritism in special rules/duties assigned, responsibility and culpability, special pay allowances and awards. Exalt "show" over "substance", mediocrity over excellence, and self-fulfillment over the harsh realities of combat readiness.


Sempers,

Roger

More on Ethos
 

Thank you, Roger, for this timely commentary, for it underscores what I consider the curse of political correctness, brought about by a perverse liberalism, at the expense of the warrior family. And lest anyone wail that I'm politicizing the topic, truth be known that it was the PC crowd, owned and operated by leftists, that has generated the harm to our military.

Several months ago, I had the privilege of delivering the graduation address to some trainees at Ft. Benning, GA. In the introduction to this soliloquy, the battalion commander mentioned a few of my exploits; in my little talk to the troops, I hastened to remind them that irrespective of that "cutesy little T-shirt the Army recruiter may have given them," everything I accomplished was done by a team - either a platoon, a company, a battalion, or larger unit. I also told them, verbatim, that I thought the "Army of One" was perhaps the most bogus advertising slogan in all of marketing history. Teamwork, I told them, was the very foundation of what I accomplished, and what they would be well served with by incorporating it into their hearts.

We have already seen the deleterious effects of lowering physical standards in order to satisfy the pernicious monster of "Diversity." The Army PT standards have been 'dumbed down' and trivialized; how many ground combat veterans have done pushups in battle, or situps in battle, or have had to run 2 miles in battle, all while garbed in cutesy PT shorts and shoes? My happy ass - let's get back to the run-dodge-and jump, the horizonal ladders, the low-crawl, and other real tests of combat physical skills, all done in combat gear, not Gucci sponsored running attire.

One of the worst ideas to come out of the volunteer Army idea was that of a "union" for the soldiers. To emphasize what Roger posted, Soldiers ain't Workers, they're Warriors! And to attempt to equate the labor mindset with that of the warrior is to completely miss the point. If it was simply a matter of task accomplishment vs. money, how much would a worker demand from his union, is he/she/it was required to perform the skills we demand of our warriors?

There is no finer triumvirate of words than "Duty Honor Country." The very essense of of this holy utterance is what defines our warriors, what motivates our warriors, and what transfroms them from common mercenaries into sanctified manifestations of decency, integrity, and patriotism.

Superscout
 

Superscout :

Could you list the hilites of your military record ? Thanks.

Larry