The post is question is: Warriors and Warrior Wannabes Sic Semper Tyrannis blog 07/02/06. It's one of Pat Lang's commenters, whose comment he elevated to a separate post. Lang is distinguishing between the real professional warrior and the Warrior, i.e., the blowhard white-guy "look-how-tough-I-can-talk-about-someone-else-killing-people" type.
Lang describes the lower-case "warriors" as:
... people for whom war is a trade, a way of life suited to their nature, a nature that is restless in civil society. For them there is a certain disinterest in the concerns of civilians, a preference for a kind of "monasticism" unlimited by the strictures of Benedict's Rule or any other "Rule" unconnected with their often unexpressed and often inexpressible code of behavior. I imagine this Venetian soldier to be one such. Such people are not a problem for civilians because they do not seek a close interaction with civilians and prefer to live among their own kind waiting for the bugle's call. Even in retirement they tend to keep to themselves and live apart. In combat units people like this are the natural leaders and "reference points for emulation" no matter what their rank. If you are not a veteran or not from a military background, then you may not know anyone of this breed. They do not seek you out.
His commenter describes the blowhard "Warrior" this way:
The Warrior is emotionally suited to pitched, Pattonesque battles of moral clarity and simple intent. I don’t mean that he is stupid.... Yet emotionally the Warrior has the uncomplicated instincts of a pit bull. Intensely loyal to friends and intensely hostile to the enemy, he doesn’t want any confusion as to which is which. His tolerance for ambiguity is very low. He wants to close with the enemy and destroy him.... This works in wars like WWII.... It does not work when winning requires the support of the population. The Warrior, unable to see things through the eyes of the enemy, or of the local population, whom he quickly comes to hate, wants to blow hell out of things. He detests all that therapeutic crap, that touchy-feely leftist stuff about respect the population, especially the women. Having the empathy of an engine block, he regards mention of mutilated children as intensely annoying at best, and communist propaganda at worst.
On the net these men sometimes speak approvingly to each other of the massacre at My Lai. Hey, they were all Cong. If they weren’t, they knew who the Cong were and didn’t tell us. Calley did the right thing, taught them a lesson. There is an admiration of Calley for having avoided bureaucratic rules of engagement probably dreamed up by civilians. War is war. You kill people. Deal with it.
That's such a great description of this type. My beef with it is that he describes such characters as (gasp! choke!) "Jacksonians"!
Oh, the horror, the horror. Let's be generous and assume his was misled by Walter Russel Mead, as I shred my garments here:
The problem is this peculiar gung-ho mindset that knows only us and them-who-are-against-us. Walter Russel Mead [] dubbed them the Jacksonians.
It's true. Mead should have to endure some punishment for that. Like be required to read aloud the entire text of John C. Calhoun's Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. I've read the thing. Believe me, that would be real punishment.
Lang's commenter adds on the Warrior:
However, the Warrior does not grant the public the right to grow weary. For him, America exists to support the military, not the other way around. Are two hundred dead a week coming back from Asia? The Warrior believes that small-town America (which is where the coffins usually go) should grit its teeth, bear down, and make the sacrifice for the country. Sacrifice for what? It doesn’t matter. We’re at war, dammit. Rally ‘round. What are you, a commy?
You know, that kind of reminds me of Chuckie.
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