The proper training of a warrior must be not just the physical and intellectual dimensions of military performance but also the values and traditions of warriorhood. This education must be achieved in an environment that fosters dignity and honor. In addition, guidance must be highly personal. The initiate must feel that his or her survival matters to concerned elders and that the transformation he or she is undergoing is critical to the culture’s preservation. A warrior knows what he is fighting to preserve. Like a bull buffalo flanking his herd to protect it from predators, a warrior knows he is essential to his people’s survival. He knows he belongs. He receives honor and blessing from his community for the service he willingly provides, and he in turn blesses his community with his devotion and willingness to sacrifice his life, if necessary, for its well-being. Moreover, warriorhood must be directed toward transcendent goals. It must be based upon universal principles and connected to divine and honorable powers and purposes. Sitting Bull sang:
Young men, help me, do help me!
I love my country so;
That is why I am fighting.
Sitting Bull and his warriors, and other bands from innumerable traditional cultures, were never plagued with self-doubt about the value of their mission, as many of our soldiers are today. In order to do battle with a whole heart, the danger and threat to one’s home must be real, and the people must experience it as immediate and about to threaten their existence as a whole. They and their warriors must be in unity. Their cause and need to fight must be absolute—in the sense that there is really nothing else they can do to preserve their food, families, and culture.
-Ed Tick
Together We Transform, always – ALWAYS TOGETHER.
Jim
1COR13:13
With Malik Noor Afzhal aka Sitting Bull in Kunar Province, Afghanistan in 2010. The gun he is holding was given to him by my team and I in 2003.
BUILT TO LEAD 