The Universal Warrior: The Many Faces of Battle
Meh, while I appreciate the authors deep thinking and work on the topic, I disagree with his conclusion that there isn&#x27;t a universal warrior due to different kinds of war and different kinds of courage and bravery culturally influenced by those different types. While there is sure to be a certain amount of variance between the kinds of people who are considered brave because of this, I think it is an archetype as Carl Jung talks about (he called it the Hero archetype of which the warrior is a subset) that applies throughout cultures and type of warfare.<p>While I haven&#x27;t ventured through time, I have grown up in the lands of those of what the author calls the first system of war, but have been trained in and participated in modern war, I see the type of person as being very much similar from both my limited reading of history and first-hand accounts of both bravery and cowardice. A good article with a lackluster conclusion.<p>I will say that the author is relatively spot on about hypervigilance, and as I stated before, my conversations with native americans of various tribes have generally agreed with his conclusion of the similarities in modern war. For example, it took me over ten years after getting out of the military to not wake up and pace the permiter of my house multiple times a night. I still do it when I&#x27;m stressed.<p>I would also say there is a lot to be said for the effects of TBI compounded upon combat stress or trauma. The level of explosions just didn&#x27;t exist the way they do today. I&#x27;ve seen guys walk away from a humvee completely intact but never the same again from it.<p>Almost even more terrifying than constantly expecting a rocket or IED or ambush is coming home to a people who don&#x27;t even understand or know what kind of horrors we have been up to in their name, continuing life as if nothing has or is happening, and having to listen to people pontificate on the subject of war (including politics) when you know the dirty, dark side of it all, while trying to pretend you are a normal person. How do you think my silicon valley co-workers would look at me if they knew the truth of the things we did, and continue to do, in their name, despite what R or D prepends some puppet presidents name at the time? So keep mum, and carry on pretending, playing along that you are indeed <i>normal</i>.<p>One probable universal about the universal warrior; the real challenge isn&#x27;t the battlefield, it&#x27;s home afterwards.