the things worth believing in

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“A warrior has success in his head, armor on his chest, and his fate is in heaven. Go to fight with confidence and you’ll come back without a single wound. Rush into the battle ready to die. Should you leave home, remember that you shall never see it again, only then shall you come back. If you dream for a moment of returning home, it will most likely never happen. Life brings about constant changes, but a samurai doesn’t think that way as his fate is predestined”. -Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578 )

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaming one’s aim is a dog’s death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling. -The Hagakure

“We’re all scared.  You hid in that ditch because you think there is still hope.  But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you are already dead.  And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.  Without mercy.  Without compassion.  Without remorse.  All war depends on it.” -From “Band of Brothers”

The passages above pretty much say what I want to convey.

After many years of reading various military and martial arts sources I have seen this idea time and again… Warriors saying that to be able to operate freely and to your full potential in combat that you can’t be concerned with “surviving”.

I suppose that I can see the logic in the idea. If your primary goal is avoiding death, all you will do is try to find the “safe” answer to a problem that has no “safe place” in it. At the best you will live; either as a coward or as something far less than a Soldier or a Warrior. At the worst you will probably be killed; as it’s easier to kill a person who is cowering, unmoving and “unfighting” in one spot, than it is to kill a moving and attacking Warrior.

While it’s easy to think that all this means is mindless “banzai” charges, I think that the point is more subtle than that. This idea applies to your personal mindset as a warrior, not to military planning and “risk mitigation”. Plan operations to reduce as much risk as possible, make your tactical decisions to increase your odds of survival, live your life so that you are not needlessly placing your life in jeopardy, but when the time comes to act you have to ACT without clouding your thoughts with worry over your survival

Sometimes the only way out is through.

A fellow LEO over at Trigger Pull Tactical posted this piece titled, Are You A True Warrior?

Webster’s dictionary describes a warrior as: “A person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics.” I laugh as I type this because I just know some pussy who’s never held a gun, much less shot one, wrote that definition. I laugh at how society of today terms a warrior as a politician or athlete. I’m not taking anything away from our modern day athletes, but just because they fly around a football field hitting each other ruthlessly, that doesn’t make them warriors. The NFL and other sports sure as hell are not war. I cringe when I hear some overbearing, self indulgent athlete talking about the WAR on Sundays! They have no idea what it’s like to wear a uniform and bullet proof vest then go out to patrol Kabul, Baghdad, New York City, Chicago, or L.A., not knowing if they’ll come home that night.

Now go read the whole thing.

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“Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.”
-Baltasar Gracian

“Heroism” or “warriorship” is in the DOING of something, not in the practice of something. You cant proclaim yourself a hero, others call you one for what you have done. I think Warriorship is much the same thing.

When conducting a deliberate, organized operation involving the co-ordination of many people with different tasks a useful tool is the “rally point”.

The military definition for a “Rally Point” is:

Rally Points: A rally point is a place where a patrol can reassemble and reorganize if dispersed during movement; or temporarily halt to reorganize and prepare for actions at an objective; or temporarily halt to prepare to depart from friendly lines; or temporarily halt to prepare to reenter friendly lines. The leader should pick rally points either during the patrol or by a map study before the patrol. Those picked from a map are tentative and will be so until confirmed on the ground.

In military operations there are various rally points:

Initial rally point (RP) : An initial rally point is where a patrol rallies if dispersed before departing friendly lines or before reaching an en route rally point. It is located within friendly lines.

En route rally points: An en route rally point is where a patrol rallies if dispersed en route to or from its objective. There may be several en route rally points. They are between friendly lines and an objective along a patrol’s route.

Objective rally point (ORP): An objective rally point is where a patrol halts to prepare for actions at its objective. It is also a point to which a patrol returns after its actions at its objective. It must be near a patrol’s objective, but there is no set distance to it from the objective. It should be far enough from the objective so that the patrol’s activities will not be detected by the enemy.

Reentry rally point: A reentry rally point is where a patrol halts to prepare to reenter friendly lines. It is short of friendly lines and out of sight and sound of friendly observation posts.

A tactical fundamental is the perimeter.

Whenever you are stopped, or if you are about to be engaged by a superior force, you need to find cover and concealment and circle the wagons to cover 360 degrees around you. By doing so, small units have been able to hold out against large forces for surprisingly long periods of time.

The leader of the group typically controls the unit from the middle of the perimeter. From here he tries to maintain a 360 degree situational awareness of what is going on. Each guy on the perimeter can only watch his own sector so he cannot worry about what is going on behind him. The leader has to see the “big picture” and make decisions.

If he has them, the leader will keep a communications element with him and a reaction force (AKA “The Reserve”).

If under attack, the leader has to keep the perimeter as intact as possible. If a member goes down, the position will either have to be filled by a member of the reserve element or the perimeter has to be reduced to maintain 360 degrees of fire. The leader makes sure that ammunition, water and equipment is distributed around the perimeter. If a member is knocked out, his ammo and equipment needs to be given to the remaining members who need it.

The leader has to be aware that the enemy my be launching “probing attacks” to judge the strength of his position, or to scout out gaps.

He cannot be lured into committing his reserve forces to an area of the perimeter by an enemy feint. If he does so, the enemies main attack may strike a weak point in his defenses and break through.

Once the leader determines that the enemies main attack is under way he will try to bolster that area of the perimeter with the reserve.

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A tool used in some tactical operations is the planning/implementation/use of what are called “phase lines”.

Typically used on planned operations where you are orchestrating movement of persons, groups of persons, vehicles, or even entire armies; phase lines are used as markers that signal a change or a necessary action that is supposed to occur. They represent a demarcation where you enter a different “phase” of your mission.

In military operations, crossing a “phase line” (many times a physical “line” like a road, stream or other landmark) may mean that your Rules Of Engagement (ROE) have changed. A military unit may acquire different priority for artillery fire or fires may shift as units cross a “phase line”.

A fairly common use of this principle in “small-scale tactics” is using a phase line technique to orchestrate SWAT operations. While the labels may vary, many SWAT units use a “Phase Line Yellow” and a “Phase Line Green”. Phase Line Yellow represents your last point of cover and/or concealment before moving up to your assault position. Specific preparatory and communication-check tasks are performed here before moving up to “Phase Line Green”. When the order is given to move to Phase Line Green you are “at the door” and ready to start your “tactical dance” . Breachers move into position, gas launchers are readied for deployment, “tap up and tap backs” occur, weapon safeties may be disengaged etc. When you are ready to roll, the commander then gives the order to “execute”

While not particularly useful for “routine” operations; if you have a situation where you have the time to plan, and the need to co-ordinate many activities and/or persons, “phase lines” can be a useful tool.

I’d buy me one of these…

An excellent post from a friend of this blog over at; William The Coroner’s Forensic Files. It’s about living a life “worth believing in”.

Read it, learn it, live it.

Every once and a while, when I cycle through my “Warriorship Examination” phase, I like to resurrect this excellent article.

By: Ethan Gilsdorf

Summary: From The Matrix to Harry Potter, heroic fantasy is hot stuff. These modern epics tap into our frustrated impulse to be 21st-century knights–and may even help unleash the workaday hero inside each of us.

A friend of mine is dissatisfied with the modern world–its strip malls and ATM machines, its speed limits and mediated experiences. “I would rather try my luck at a horde of orcs with a broad sword,” he says, “than pay the Visa bill and look for parking.”

He pines for days when life seemed to be constructed around heroic deeds rather than menial mouse clicks. Millions of others also long to escape into brave new worlds: Fantasy and science fiction are now front and center in our culture. Nine of the top 10 all-time, worldwide movie box-office kings are Lord of the Rings- or Harry Potter-based (or else conjure up rival science fiction/fantasy empires like Star Wars). Last year, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix sold 12.2 million copies to become the biggest-selling book in the U.S. in 2003. Throw in piles of Xbox shoot-’em-up games, and you could say the geeks have inherited the Earth.

Why the surge in popularity? Legendary sociologist Norbert Elias suggested that in an increasingly structured society, fantasy books, games and movies create arenas for the “controlled decontrolling” of emotions. It’s not socially acceptable to duel that surly human resources director with a stapler gun at 20 paces, and destroying a castle with a trebuchet isn’t an option for the average white-collar worker. Instead, against a backdrop of magic and myth, heroic fantasy allows us to prove our mettle by saving some parallel world from easily identifiable bad guys.

Futuristic and magical scenarios now dominate because the cops-and-robbers thrillers and cowboys-and-Indians yarns of decades past just don’t fit in our “increasingly multiethnic, culturally relativistic and journalistically examined world,” says Gerard Jones, media scholar and author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes and Make-Believe Violence. No matter your politics, war stories or police stories just don’t offer the same release anymore. “We can still enjoy police fantasies, but even those bring in so many complex political and ethical issues now that most of us can’t really surrender to a wide-open good-guy vs. bad-guy fantasy in police garb. So stories of magic worlds, other planets and superheroes become our substitute.”

Escaping to another dimension is normal: Most people spend about half of their time daydreaming and fantasizing, says psychologist Steven Jay Lynn, professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton and co-author of The Monster in the Cave: How to Face Your Fear and Anxiety and Live Your Life. “Daydreams and fantasy play a vital role in everyday life,” he says. “They inspire us, regulate our moods and help us contemplate future possibilities.”

That includes the possibility of violence and even evil. Parents who crusade against felonious games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City may not want to hear it, but idolizing villains and identifying with the Darth Vaders and Lord Voldemorts can be liberating, says Jones. As children, play and fantasy let us practice what we will be later in life-as well as what we will never be. “Fantasies of physical conflict and danger have been branded ‘violent’ in recent decades by people who don’t trust or understand them, but they can be some of the most basic, most natural and most valuable tools a child can have for the hard work of growing up,” he says. Kids with the greatest anxiety about risk and the greatest reservations about exploring their own strength and destructive potential have the most urgent need for fantasy, Jones says.

But while children role-play to explore themselves, in adulthood the game changes. Grown-ups turn to fantasy for stress relief, Jones says. They also identify with make-believe heroes, seeing them as guides for self-improvement. Unfortunately, most shoot-’em-up games are so shallow that players gain no personal insight, says John Suler, a professor of psychology at Rider University in New Jersey and author of The Psychology of Cyberspace. He believes the most beneficial heroic narratives depict essential human struggles: betrayal, revenge and overcoming great odds. “In everyday living, we re-enact the classic conflicts and victories of the hero. We may not be slaying actual dragons, but the monsters in our lives and psyche pose no less a threat,” he says. “A good hero story or computer-mediated re-enactment crystallizes in a vivid and symbolic form the challenges we face in everyday life-and a really good story offers us ideas as to how to surmount those challenges.” Suler says games like Everquest and SimsOnline, which create a complex social structure and let players assume roles, can instruct us.

In Western culture, “how to be a hero” instruction has roots that go back to 12th century Norse sagas and ancient-Greek epic poems, points out University of Michigan Law School professor William Ian Miller, author of The Mystery of Courage. These legends taught both psychological and moral lessons, and pointed the way to bravery. “In Icelandic sagas, the character would say, ‘I have not yet done anything saga-like,’” Miller says. “This type of epic wasn’t just escape, but was designed to fantasize yourself into this action and this behavior.” These heroic narratives featured imperfect characters who accomplished great things, despite their flaws.

However, kids raised on Thor or Tolkien don’t predictably gravitate to modern-day “hero” jobs like policeman or firefighter. Nor can you ever guarantee who will act bravely in wartime, Miller says. Courage is learned by practicing it day by day-by speaking up when you get cut off in line, not by waiting until you come across a maiden tied to the railroad tracks. “You have to train yourself to be courageous,” Miller says. Taking small daily risks prepares us for unexpected tests of courage, and he worries that “the upper-middle-class disease of risk aversion”-meticulously organized playtimes, the rush to protect children from any potential conflict or harm-has deprived children of chances to test themselves.

Reality-TV programs like Jackass or Fear Factor, which do involve risk, don’t do much to foster real bravery, says marriage and family therapist Tina Tessina, author of It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction. “Jumping out of a plane without a parachute, climbing Mount Everest, and other extreme sports can be used as a way to avoid real life responsibilities and feelings, and to get high on adrenaline,” says Tessina. The courage required in these televised tests of character-drinking blended pig parts before mobs of spectators, for example-are at best a temporary escape.

Yet because we yearn to be seen as bold, brave and courageous, we’ll take stupid risks to prove our worth. Psychologists Mark Leary and Kathleen Martin interviewed 300 adolescents on risk-taking behavior. About one-quarter said they’d driven recklessly in order to impress people, and one-third of the young men admitted performing reckless stunts in an attempt to look cool-everything from juggling knives and jumping off a bridge to riding on top of a car.

Some blame these faux-heroics on modern society, arguing that our culture just doesn’t offer enough opportunities for valor. That’s not strictly true-after September 11, firefighters and police officers were nearly elevated to the status of saints. They are the exception, though: For many of us, struggling with mundane jobs and tedious hassles, heroism on the scale of saving lives will never seem attainable. But that doesn’t make everyday quests any less important. It can be equally brave simply to stand up for what you believe in. “Quiet heroism is showing up for your child’s school play when it’s difficult to get off work, or being honest and ethical in the face of someone’s disapproval or scorn,” says Tessina. “That’s the kind of heroism that really counts in life.”

Ethan Gilsdorf (www.ethangilsdorf.com) is a freelance writer, critic and poet based in Paris.

Alright, I have a moment to type.

It would be a fairly accurate statement to say that when I created this blog it was with the intention of coalescing my thoughts about, and refining my definition of, “Warriorship”.

While “Warriorship” is closely associated with the word “Warrior”, I am starting to come to the conclusion that they may have become two separate but closely related issues; perhaps too closely related. While one can be quantifiable, the other has become so nebulous that people training in what I define as “Wariorship” have come to believe that doing so makes them “Warriors” which I don’t believe is the case.

I am currently of the opinion that the term “Warrior”, as in “I am a Warrior”, is currently overused and misapplied. In my worldview, a “warrior” is a person who fights for their country, lord or master, or is at least a dedicated professional in a field of arms. Professional military personnel fit my definition, with the special operators on one end of the continuum and more mundane MOS personnel at the other. I would also include Law Enforcement Officers as existing on the outside fringe of possible inclusion. Currently the term is being applied to a wide range of people; athletes, new ager’s, martial artists, gun enthusiasts and the terminally Ill to name a few. Not to disparage any of these people, but while they may behave with the virtues of a warrior, or be training in the skills of a “Warrior”, defining yourself as a Warrior impresses me a Walter Mitty-ish fantasy. Harmless in most cases, admittedly, but with some disturbing exceptions as in the case discussed elsewhere in this blog.

“Warriorship” is a concept that doesn’t even have one  accepted definition. While the O.E.D. defines it as “1The craft or skill of military arts and science, see ‘warrior , most attempts to find a definition lead you to Carlos Castenada; Cogyam Trungpa and his Shambala philosophy, Joseph Campbell, Ninjutsu practitioners, New Age Druids, Native American culture and Bushido. While sharing some characteristics, there is no common definition between them.

So I guess Im going to add my definition to the mix. I define Warriorship as:

Warriorship
( War-ri-or-ship ) n. [OE. werreour, OF. werreour, guerreor, from guerre, werre, war. See War]

1. A state in which a person is training in the skills and traits possessed by those of the Warrior profession.

2. A philosophy based on the positive character and social traits of persons in the warrior profession.

At least thats my first hack at it. Any opinions or assistance in refining it will be appreciated.

I suppose that by my definition a person can be participating in “warriorship” if they are approaching training and life as more than a mere “hobbyist”. Someone going to a martial arts class two times a week isn’t participating. Someone who buys a handgun and wears 5.11 “operator clothes” and tactical boots isn’t participating. Just reading books and playing paintball isn’t enough.

Someone who looks at the entirety of life as “training in warriorship”, learning, mastering and incorporating into their personal lifestyle skills as varied as combat techniques; navigation, medicine, climbing/rappelling, driving, swimming, SCUBA, physical conditioning and countless others MAY be meeting my definition. However, my personal twist would include some sort of service to society, putting those skills to use.

The hazard lies in the ease by which a person practicing Warriorship as a lifestyle can fall into believing that they are the equivalent of a Warrior. I believe that many people who begin the pursuit in the first place are doing one hoping to become the other.

more to come later…..