There is a chorus of voices today, some even decorated combat veterans lamenting the perceived loss of the "warrior ethic" in our military. These people define being a warrior as a rowdy, hard-living and drinking type who bulls his way through life's problems with blind obedience to orders and his reward is his right to brag ceaselessly about himself and his unit, trash talking the other services just as he would put a bullet in his enemy. Technological advances that can keep an outnumbered 12-Division Army victorious against third world country "baby-machines" that can crank out dissastisfied rebels with an AKM or RPG by the thousands are castigated as it gives them less chance to showcase their own personal toughness that can be boasted upon later at a bar or gathering. Strangely linked to this phenomena is a connection to a right-wing political agenda in knee-jerk opposition to peacekeeping operations like Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo because the current left-wing civilian political rulers of the military are advancing a social agenda in the military that is opposed to their "image" of the warrior ethic.

The irony of the latter, is that if the President were a combat veteran and sending them to peacekeeping missions, it would be "O.K". Even more weird is that the FICL crowd complains that by our Army being in places like Bosnia/Kosovo maintaining the peace, it is not going to be as ready for a war because its not shooting blanks at each other a few hundred miles away in Germany, when by being in Bosnia its PREVENTING THE WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE! The best way to win a war is to not fight it in the first place. Study Sun Tzu or B.H. Lidell-Hart or better the Bible and not action-adenture magazines and this will become clear. Think what the WWII generation could have done in terms of space exploration and science if it had taken out Hitler and the Concentration camps in the ‘30s and not turned a blind eye to the slaughter of the innocents. There would have been no flag raising on Mount Suribachi, no Medals of Honor, no D-Day, but 358,000 more living, instead of dead Americans. No need for the nuclear bomb, no Mrs. Sullivans losing all her sons in a cruel act of war. Instead of selling the men on the linkages of Balkan peacekeeping to preventing an ethnic war spreading to Greece/Turkey and farther and backing civilian leaders who despite their personal hypocrisies have chosen us a good path, we are fed a steady diet of isolationism and "America first": the same poisoned meat that gave us two world wars.

What the FICL crowd would have us to do is return to some mythical "good ole days" where we train for a war as we drink it up at the bars/brothels later lamenting the fatalistic lot of the "warrior" and "bond" together as we let the world collapse into a hand basket from hell so the "warrior" can charge into battle and save the day at the cost of thousands, of American lives. The Warrior would have proven himself in this life and be fulfilled, surrounded by his comrades.

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Parts of that article were contradictory, but I read the whole piece and it's good.  Especially the end.

Remember the 'pinning' wings video that was released several years ago and caused such a commotion?

It was a candid video of newly graduating paratroops getting their 'wings', studs and all, pinned to their bare chests in a 'cruel' fashion. The soccermoms, liberals, media, were all in a tizzy.

All I could think was...well, it is a tradition and that's the way it's been done for a pretty good period of time, and if I were going to get a jump pin, I'd want it pinned on the same way everybody before me got theirs pinned on them.

And if I couldn't take that little bit of pain that was so laced with tradition, how in the hell am I gonna react to some real injuries and real pain in a jump gone bad, firefight, etc.?

Eric The(YouCan'tJustSwoonAtTheEnemy!)Hun

I've never been in the military, but IMHO what we have seen is a 'give us more time and we can make this female in combat thing work'!

That's just great if you're driving Hummers in some UN/NATO/Whatever 'peacekeeping' mission.

When and if the US faces a real 'war' in the future, when the very existence of the nation is at stake, then this social engineering that we've been engaged in for so long will quickly give way to a 'f' that sh|t, this is war!

At that point the females will be led quietly away from the front. Those are not my rules, it may not be fair, it's not anyone's fault, or whatever, it's just the way things are.

I believe that Sgt. Barnes (Platoon) said it best to Sgt. Red O'Neill - 'Sorry, Red, I can't afford to let you go, I need every swinging dick I can get.' (or words to that effect)

That's what he meant, and that's what some future platoon leader is going to be looking for in his men, before a great and terrible battle in some future war, every swinging....

Eric The(SplittailsNeedNotApply)Hun

Even more weird is that the FICL crowd complains that by our Army being in places like Bosnia/Kosovo maintaining the peace, it is not going to be as ready for a war because its not shooting blanks at each other a few hundred miles away in Germany, when by being in Bosnia its PREVENTING THE WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE! The best way to win a war is to not fight it in the first place. Study Sun Tzu or B.H. Lidell-Hart or better the Bible and not action-adenture magazines and this will become clear.

The point I'm making is the battlefield is more than physical fitness...did bicep size stop bullets in Somalia? Or at Bastogne? Has it ever? If he read his military history he'd know the French started this "spirit of the bayonet" nonsense and lost millions of men, an entire generation--charging the inter-locking fire German machine guns, and planned artillery concentrations with just bolt-action rifles, bayonets attached, of course. Their audacity was not enough. Readers George and Ping are asking the wrong question, "soft or hard" is irrelevant. Is our training RIGHT?

So you too belive that you have to be a drunken masochist to be a real soldier, eh?

Also, historicly speeking when real wars have occured and the fate of the nation is at stake is so far the only time women have been called upon to fight for their country; see Russia, China, Isreal, Vietnam, ect... but I guess thats when you need the real fighters and not the macho sobs who get themselves wasted "heroicly" charging machine gun nests with a bayonet?

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Mike Sparks hates the Marine Corps because he was once a Marine Officer (in training). However, he was separated from the Marine Corps because he failed out of the Infantry Officers Course and was redesignated as either a supply or logistics officer, he subsequently failed out of that MOS school also.  

The reason physical fitness is important is that pulling a trigger on a machine gun takes very little effort.  But carrying the whole 58 lbs of a complete M240G in addition to the ammunition required is bit tougher.  It doesn't matter if you are best trained killer in the world if you cannot get their to do the killing you are useless.  Look at a paratrooper, rigged to jump they have over 100 lbs on their bodies, if you cannot move that over 100 lbs to the plane to even board you are useless to them, you won't be able to drop into combat.  That is one of the biggest draw back to women in the military is most women lack upper body strength, many non-combat jobs require two women were it would only take one man because they don't have upper body strength to move items.  Technology has yet to make the 103.5 lbs of a DPICM round not weigh 103.5 lbs.

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[i]Think what the WWII generation could have done in terms of space exploration and science if it had taken out Hitler and the Concentration camps in the ‘30s and not turned a blind eye to the slaughter of the innocents. There would have been no flag raising on Mount Suribachi, no Medals of Honor, no D-Day, but 358,000 more living, instead of dead Americans. No need for the nuclear bomb,...[/i]


Now, the intention there is good, but that paragraph shows a real general lack of understanding.
Necessity being the mother of invention, much of the hard technology we use was developed during and for war.  Hell, we would not have went to the moon in the 60's, without the help of captured?/liberated? German rocket scientists.  NFW!  The British came up with RADAR during WWII.  And this is my favorite..."No need for the nuclear bomb."  If there had been no need, nobody would have listened to what some at the time thought were the demented ramblings of a Jewish fellow with long, white, messed up hair.  Nuclear power would have been developed much later.  More than likely the [b]wrong[/b] folks would have split the atom first.  Then, there would be a BIG need for it!

He comes nowhere close to defining neither the warrior mentality, ethics or ethos. When I get more time I will describe it as best I can, but it will take sometime to articulate it properly. For now I will say that when a warrior meets another warrior, both know it right away. Not allwarriors are in the military, and not all in the military are warriors.