Warror Ethos

The Warrior Ethos

Give Our Troops A Break

by Roy D. Follendore III

It appears as though the U.S. Army has been spending a great deal of our time and money working on the development of a philosophy that they can sell to soldiers who are already sold on the idea of serving their country. As a soldier who has been in and out the active duty Army, I know that there is not much that a soldier can openly say about this kind of propaganda without getting into trouble. When some General decides something it must be wonderful, because after all, everyone is expected to think it is wonderful and life becomes very uncomfortable when as a soldier you disagree. The stay in line orientation makes it easy to create crazy indoctrination schemes. The problem is that this also exactly the kind of trend that tends to get people killed in action.

I suppose that the push for the noble "Warrior Ethos" goes along with the introduction of those French berets. Everyone can look like a Rambo. Now with these hats if you join the Army, so can you. But unfortunately hats don't make soldiers and neither do slogans. Frankly, I personally don't quite understand this affection to those black French berets. It is supposed to make our troops look professional and elite. Frankly, in my opinion what it actually does is make a lot of our soldiers look stupid. Add the new combat glasses and you get the whole picture. Someday we can expect our troops to walk around in masks, like the goofy looking storm troopers in Star Wars.

Here are some comments that I have about the Warrior Ethos propaganda.

I will always place the mission first.

Well, actually no, orders just do not work that way. One could say that technically the problem begins with that little word "always." In the most practical terms, if a General ordered a soldier to think about elephants, he or she could probably do that. But if the General ordered the same soldier to 'always' think about elephants, it would be pretty much an intellectual impossibility. Placing "the mission first", is very much like that. A good soldier might say that the mission is being placed first but the reality is that there are an awful lot of things that get placed before the mission. Missions are just objectives, a priority of the moment. The thing is that the moment any plan goes into effect, it is recognized that the plan has changed. At some point even a good soldier will begin to ask who the hell knows the plan and why should he/she care about the mission? Of course the mission should always be about doing the right thing and being the best that you can be given the circumstance. It is amazing how Generals seem to expect to know what is the right thing and the best thing before things happen. One can easily argue that placing the mission first means that some idiots objectives are expected to override a soldiers common sense. This lack of understanding that lots of things should be placed before a mission is what gets soldiers killed and modern wars lost. This ethos breaks the most important facet of a modern soldier. Smart soldiers with smart weapons must be flexible, willing and able to think and act for themselves as well as for us all.

I will never accept defeat.

Of course this is wrong. All soldiers are willing to accept defeat if you allow them a way to do it honorably. Our DNA is made up of instructions that tell us how to survive. Kenny Rodgers said it best. Being a successful soldier means being able to walk away from a war zone alive. Success on the modern battlefield means knowing when to holdup, knowing when to fold up, knowing when to walk away and when to run. It is an obvious scientific fact that all humans eventually accept defeat. The thing this ethos is not saying is that there are all forms of defeat. The act of sacrificing ones self by falling on a grenade is a form of acceptance of defeat. There have been many soldiers who have been posthumously awarded medals for being 'heroes'. Generals like to point out this kind of soldier as examples for others. But the thing is that each and every one of these soldiers can were defeated by being unable to continue to fight. Success in avoiding defeat during war involves soldiers learning what they can and can not do as well as the ethical and rational reasons for allowing yourself to be defeated. Soldiers consider the acceptance of defeat when it becomes absolutely obvious that there are no true objectives to missions given them that should be placed before them. The perpetuation of an endless succession of pointless wars happens to be exactly what Hitler asked of his troops in Berlin as the Russian Army advanced on his bunker. American troops should not be treated like those German soldiers in World War II. What we should be asking of our troops is that they do best. The word 'never' is an awful long time to commit a soldier to an oath. The Army might as well ask solders to tattoo "I am stupid, so kill me!" on their foreheads.

I will never quit

There are a lot of soldiers in Iraq who have been extended who understand the full meaning of this crazy slogan. This is the one ethos that every 'short' soldier probably thinks about perhaps even before they put on a uniform. From the time they spend in basic training, every soldier worth his/her salt in the Army thinks about quitting the Army. If this is not true then the training was not tough enough. The idea of training is to test the metal of the soldier but not break it. Of course no one likes everything about the Army, and believe it or not this remains true even when someone is not shooting at them. War is endless, the lives of people are not. Of course soldiers will quit. They will quit when they die. They will quit when the Army decides they are too old. Soldiers quit because they get fed up with all of the phony the bullshit, or when they want to settle down and actually raise a family with both parents present in the lives of their children. You had better believe that our soldiers quit. Citizens make soldiers quit. Armies make soldiers quit pointless wars when the politicians are told by the people that they will no longer be elected. The ethos that soldiers will never quit is a crazy idea that simply is not true.

I will never leave a fallen comrade

This one presents an interesting dilemma. Aside from the fact that 'never' is unfortunately once again there is an obvious question. Does the word fallen mean (a.) the fallen dead or (b.) the fallen wounded? If the answer is (a.) then exactly how much is a dead soldier worth? Is a dead soldier worth the deaths of ten more soldiers, or is it worth twenty? If you were the dead soldier would you have wanted another soldier to die because they did not want to leave your body behind? I don't think so. If fallen dead soldiers are to be part of a realistic ethos then it should justify leaving the dead behind. But what if a fallen comrade is alive? The truth is that this also happens all of the time. Wounded are often left behind to be killed or captured by the enemy. In a modern rapidly moving combat zone this is the core of the most highly developed tactics. Once again, we have the potential of a pointless deadly battle based on the bait and the trap and even our most underdeveloped enemies know this. The movie Black Hawk down was about that sort of thing. The bodies of our dead American soldiers left behind litter the fields of this planet, for precisely the same reason that the British soldiers do.

Let me make my position clear, I am not saying that our troops are not needed. In this World of course they are needed. I think that they should not be misused and abused. We should not be wrecking our military, just as we should not be loading our troops down with some ridiculous rhetorical ethos. The Warriors Ethos is nothing but propaganda. Soldiers do not fight a successful war for propaganda. They fight because they love their fellow soldiers and team members. When men and women become soldiers they become part of a tribe. Instead of a Warriors Ethos, I propose the following soldiers ethos.

I will work to improve my assigned mission.

I will understand the humanity of defeat.

I will quit when and if it becomes the right thing to do.

I will not ask my fellow soldiers to die needlessly for me.

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