WARRIOR SPIRIT

[GRIZZLYBEAR]

Years ago (early '70's) while taking some handgun training from LTC "Jeff " Cooper he quoted an old Shoshone refrain that goes something like this:

"Over here, over there, everywhere,
Today, tomorrow, always:
Bad men there are.
Hate you they do.
Kill you they will.
Watch out you better!"

In my opinion it was good advice then and is still good advice today!!

This led to a discussion of the Warrior Spirit over some liquid refreshments and below are a few of the conclusions we agreed on:

1. The only thing that stands between you and death is your ability to resist. Order and justice can only be realized through the hand of might. Fear is ignorance actualized. Knowledge displaces fear.

2. Death is always one step from despair.


3. The philosopher reasons, but the Warrior acts, or as phrased by Phil Messina, President of the prestigious Modern Warrior® “Martyrs alert the world to the presence of evil. Warriors do something about it.”

4. It’s difficult for rational Man to envision evil incarnate, in the frightening form of a stranger willing to destroy him for what he can only perceive as “no good reason.” This moral ambiguity is what the threat counts on during the initial phase of his assault, to delay your appropriate response just long enough to kill you. The thing that distinguishes a Warrior from all others is his propensity to not only survive in the realm of interpersonal aggression, but his capacity to thrive in it. While mere sheep flee the conflict, the Warrior willingly advances towards it and returns fire.

5. The Warrior is prepared for combat wherever he is.

6. This is a hard-wired psychological response to the appearance of a threat. Our first instinct is to run, and failing that, to cower and capitulate, give him anything to save our miserable lives. Most people, when the time comes to act, instead simply stare stupidly at their swiftly impending doom, thinking something profound, along the lines of, “I can’t believe it’s not butter.”

7. Today, the Warrior isn’t a hero, his exploits aren’t celebrated, and in fact, the exact opposite is true: the disarmed victim, who doesn’t fight and certainly never wins, has replaced, and is wrongly called “hero.” No society can exist long with this mind set.

Well flame away--this old bear can take it.

grizz

[27hand]

Warrior Grizz, (sounds good ,eh)

I like it.

Sounds like you mixed in a little John Farnam.

I believe his philosophy is to react quickly and violently to any action which may cause you or yours harm if disengagement is no longer a viable option. (sounds like a warrior mindset)

Most aggressors bank on the fact that you will be indecisive and do nothing to protect yourself.

The subject of training comes up quite a bit at work (primarily construction grunts like me). I get asked what is involved. "Spending hundreds of dollars, taking off a day of work and buying a thousand rounds of ammo to take a class that essentially will teach you how to defend yourself". Take it a step further--these classes teach you how to stop an aggressive act against you and if the agressor dies,so be it.The response from my coworkers is usually something like "so essentially, they teach you how to kill people". Maybe not so far off the mark.

The politically correct answer is "no, we get taught to use whatever means possible to stop the fight and survive". They can draw their own conclusions.

If I said to these big strong grunts that we get taught how to react like a "Warrior" would, they would laugh like hell.

The majority of guys I talk to about this all think they will rise to the task. I believe I read that even on this forum.
I personally don't think they will but could never convince them otherwise.

I have taken about a dozen or so of these classes and feel I am marginally proficient with a handgun. The problem is this. I seem to learn something and get comfortable only to realize it is only the first step or level. I may have to keep on going. Maybe someday I'll get good but then will realize that is again only the next level. I wonder if it will ever end.

I know the answer.

I hope that if ever I get put to the task, the reaction will be almost automatic.

As far as having a "Warrior Mindset", I'm not sure if I consider what I train for is that or just a confident feeling that I will know what to do if I ever have to. One trainer I know even states that if you are ever shot that you can "avenge your own death". This sounds like having the warrior mindset. To have the intestinal fortitude to gather yourself and react violently even after sustaining a severe injury.




The basics. You do them so many times that even if they are in fact still "basic", you become more advanced and hardly realize it.

Good post Grizz.

27hand

[DPB]

Some random, and hopefully relevant, thoughts.

The vast majority of Americans, even today, do not understand that there are those who will willfully do them harm at every opportunity. They do not understand that there are a great many people in the world today who are raising thier childred to hate us, for no reason other than the (relatively) free society in which we live. They (the majority) also have no concept of the degenerates operating within our society, who have no regard for civilized behavior.

I believe that there are several reasons for this. First, our society has done a good job at insulating the sheep from the wolves. Unfortunately, the sheep do not understand just how thin that layer of insulation is. Second, most people are so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they have very little regard for anything going on around them.

On the subject of training, if you have trained properly, and you have trained your mind properly, your reaction will be "almost automatic." When I say "trained your mind," I mean that you have conditioned yourself to continue acting when the situation no longer makes any rational sense, and, to react in an appropriate manner regardless of distraction. Read "Armor" by John Steakley. When his main character goes into combat, his conscious mind is taken over by an entity he calls "the Engine," and it does what is necessary for him to survive. Well, to a greater or lesser degree, this happens for real.

The willingness to prepare is supremely important. Shooting is expensive, and hitting the gym and the pavement hurt. But, "rising to meet the challenge" is something that happens in the movies. "Regressing to your level of training" is what happens when the world goes mad.

As far as the "Warrior" being a "Hero," quite the opposite is true. If you are placed in a situation that requires you to do something extraordinary, other "Warriors" will respect you. Most others will hate and envy you, because you have done something that they lacked either the capability, or, more likely, the committment to do.

My final point, committment. Read "Leadership and Training for the Fight" by MSG Paul Howe. He says something to the effect of "when the time for the slaughter comes, you must commit to the slaughter completely." Many people fail to act because of fear of potential consequences, and because they fail to percieve that their inaction will lead to worse consequences.

Just my observations.

doug

[GRIZZLYBEAR]

In his book, “Sudden Violence,” Greg Jones asks, “To what extremes are you willing to go to ensure your own safety? Do you believe you have it within you to be able to take a man’s life with… no hesitation if a situation warrants it?”

Jones shares that there are too many people who are shot with their own legal defensive firearm because they waited too long to act for their own protection, naïvely hoping the threat would simply go away.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman explains in his book “On Killing,” that most men, when the critical instant comes to justly deliver death, hesitate. He gives the example that during the Civil War, muskets were recovered having over a dozen minié balls recklessly stuffed down the barrel, or that men would purposely shoot over the heads of the enemy.

To kill or seriously injure another person is as foreign to them as committing suicide. Every species has no compunction over exterminating a different one, but all hesitate to destroy their own.

Mentally, a particular scenario reveals our makeup: picture two men locked in mortal combat, one with his hands wrapped around the other’s neck. What would you do?

“Being a Warrior has little to do with war and much to do with causes.”

Although he doesn’t appear to be, the sheepdog is a Warrior, one who would never turn claws and teeth on the flock, but nonetheless, who yearns for a righteous battle.

Now my answer and I believe it is the correct answer to the question about mortal combat:

The “trick” in this question is that you must first decide which of these two men you are. Most passive sheep can’t easily visualize themselves doing the choking; they invariably select themselves as the victim. Only those who’ve experienced it, or have trained for such an encounter, identify themselves as the one doing the choking.

grizz

[steve762]

DPB,
Random thoughts or not, I think you're right on. Complacency might be the biggest enemy that this country has. A lot of people are stuck on the status quo and believe/operate on the assumption that what exists today always will.

I was born and raised complacent. Looks like you were trained not to be complacent. On 9/11, my world changed. I was fortunate enough to have some friends who raised important questions, like "what if it was a nuke" or "what if there were broader-reaching economic impacts", and because of the relative safety of our society, as you pointed out, a lot of people assume that things won't change- which makes the possibility of a sudden change even more severe.

Anyway, there are a lot of questions that a lot of folks have not answered. I don't bring it up too often because people still look at me like I'm nuts. I really don't want to be in a position to say "told ya so" on this stuff, but in the same way that you pointed out that a lot of folks don't realize how well the "sheep" and "wolves" have been separated, a lot of people fail to realize how many "constants" in our society are in fact variable.

Again, for random thoughts, I couldn't agree more.