#WarriorWednesday - What is the Warrior Spirit?

When I started this recent project of daily topics to be expanded upon, in all honesty, I thought some of them sounded cool. #MondayMachines, #TuesdaysTroops, #WarriorWednesday, #ThursdayThoughts and #FridayForts. I also knew, based on the topics that I would probably have content to draw upon for a long time. #WarriorWednesday fits the bill in both instances.

I can not even start to imagine the incredible number of people that fit the description of "warrior" within our armed forces. I have written about many of them so far and there is no shortage of them in sight. But before I continue down this path, I thought it might be a good thing to define what I mean by the term.

What I came up with in the initial description was, "that unmistakable American fighting spirit". Kind of braod and able to be applied across a wide array of individuals and circumstances. From people like Nathan Hale and Patrick Henry to more modern counterparts like Chesty Puller and Carlos Hathcock. But it certainly doesn't only apply to those who have distinguished themselves in word and deed on the battlefields of history. It also has to include people like Major Ron Upton who overcame a quadriplegic outcome from an accident to run a marathon. Or someone like Army Ranger Joseph Kapacziewski, who lost a leg and came back to be re-deployed in combat 4 years later. Although each of these men has his own story, none of them are entirely unique. They all possess that same spirit that drives them to do things others could never think of as possible.

I came across an article written by Captain William M. Conner Jr called Developing The Warrior Spirit In Ranger Training. In it, he gives his personal definition of that spirit as follows:

Above all, it is a state of mind. A soldier with the warrior spirit thinks aggressively, always seeking to close with and defeat the enemy. He is confident that he is tought enough to meet the enemy on any level. He is less concerned with his personal safety and is more concerned with inflicting as much pain as possible on the enemy. In training, this soldier focuses completely on ways to improve his unit's ability to fight. He draws his satisfaction from continually developing his fighting prowess. He takes it personally when he loses in training because he knows it is unacceptable to lose in combat. In sum, the warrior spirit drives a soldier to fight and win, or die trying.

Connor goes on to compare it with the doctrinal definition of the "warrior ethos" found in field training manual 22-100. That reads"

Leadership: The will to win with honor. Despite a thinking enemy, despite adverse conditions, you accomplish your mission. You express your character -- the BE of BE, KNOW, DO -- when you and your people confront a difficult mission and persevere. The warrior ethos is the will to meet mission demands, no matter what, the drive to get the job done, whatever the cost.

Those are two pretty solid explanations of the warrior spirit. We can see that spirit displayed throughout history and now, daily, on the battlefields, in training, in adversity faced from a myriad of situations and in every day life. We will do our best to dig deep into the well of human accomplishment driven by the warrior spirit. I have no doubt that many of these stories will probably be well known, but I am also going to try and find the lesser known who display the spirit with no less zeal as those like Puller, and Chris Kyle.

Thank you to all of our warriors out there who have made this country a better place by way of the warrior spirit that they displayed day in and day out, but especially in the most trying circumstances that they ever faced. They did not back down. They could not back down. That spirit pushes them too hard to allow them to even think about quitting.

You can read the entire article by Connor: Infantry Magazine article by Connor, 1999.