A Reminder of What a Real Military Looks Like

Via Gen Z Conservative

America’s military, run as it is by soy-boy politicians and weak generals, has fallen deep into the depths of wokeness and impotence. It can’t win wars, even against third-world villagers armed only with small arms, doesn’t stand for American values, and is no longer full of the strong sort of men necessary to win wars.

Even the “tip of the spear,” so to speak, isn’t in particularly good fighting shape, as BAP points out in The Bronze Age Mindset (the “they” refers to ancient Greek hoplites):

“Physically, spiritually and in intellect they exceed us in every way. I give example: our elite athletes, our special forces operators, are nothing compared to them. We find Paleolithic bones, the femur, so robust that nothing from our runners or power-lifters equals. These men were capable of sustained speeds unimaginable today. You know about Marathon, but not the whole story. The real physical feat wasn’t just the soldier who ran the twenty miles or so back to Athens to warn the people. The entire army ranged on the beach in heavy bronze armor, facing the enemy. After the Persians landed, the Greeks charged them from more than a mile away. The Persians were amazed at the line of gleaming bronze running toward them and their war cry. These men ran a mile in very heavy armor and also carried six-foot-plus ashen spear-spike. They drove the invaders into the sea. And right after this great effort they marched, still in armor, all the way back to Athens without pause, to prevent the Persians from making an opportune landing there. I don’t think any special military units would be able to equal this feat today, and these were the average citizens of Athens.”

While he might be wrong in a select few cases– David Goggins comes to mind– he’s generally right. Even the best of the best today can’t compare to the average citizens of yesterday.

And that’s just in the physical realm. What general today has the military genius of Alexander, Julius Caesar, Julian, Napoleon, or even the Duke of Wellington? Are our soldiers as daring as Alcibiades, as brave as Sir Francis Drake, or as steadfast as Leonidas? Do our officers have the balls of steel necessary to tell their men to “follow the flash” and then march in line formation across no man’s land, or the immense internal fortitude required to remain in phalanx formation while the sky turns black with enemy arrows?

Given our utter failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam, I doubt it. Yes, many individual soldiers are brave beyond belief. Dakota Meyer, the SEALs in Vietnam, the contractors that defended the embassy in Benghazi– all of them have the courage of their ancestors, the spirit of lions.

But that level of martial spirit is increasingly lacking. The weakness and degeneracy of our society have seeped into the military, resulting in an Army that can’t fight, a Navy that can’t sail, and a Space Force that fires officers who despise Marxism.

Such men do not a victorious military make.

Yet worse, they can’t even create an honorable military; the Confederacy lost and the 300 Spartans were cut down where they stood, but their vigor and nobility of spirit secured their place in history. The cavaliers of Northern Virginia and Dorian hoplites of the Peloponnese will be remembered as long as men are free because of what they represent: honor and fearlessness.

If men like Milley are in the history books, it will only be as a jester, as a caricature of the political sort of general to laugh at rather than praise.

So, to what spirit should our military return? To the spirit of our ancestors, most nobly shown by the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. While the movie 300 is far from perfect, this scene does show that spirit quite well:

“Remember this day boys, for it will be yours for all time.”

A javelin throw followed by “Persians! Come and get them!”

“Give them nothing, but take from them everything.”

Fighting with sword, shield, and spear they show no mercy and expect no quarter to be given to them.

Relatedly, there’s this scene:

“Only the hard and the strong may call themselves Spartans.”

“We march for our lands, for our families, for our freedoms.”

And their cheer to “Spartans, what is your profession?!” Shows you everything you need to know about martial spirit.

Such soldiers used to thrive in the American military.

Stonewall Jackson remarked, “The time for war has not yet come, but it will come, and that soon; and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.”

Black Jack Pershing had his Muslim enemies buried with a pig carcass.

The Texans, like the Spartans, replied with “Come and take it” when the Mexicans demanded they surrender a cannon.

The 101st Airborne, holed up in Bastogne, replied with “Nuts.” when the Germans demanded that they surrender.

Captain Nathan Hale, when hung during the Revolution, famously said “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” before being hung.

Across the pond, Churchill famously said, when invasion appeared imminent, said “If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

Such is the spirit of warriors. No quarter is given, none is expected, and those who fight are meant to win rather than appease.

But that spirit has largely disappeared.

Ever since the idiotic doctrine of “hearts and minds” took over the soft troops in our Armed Forces, our officers have been far more willing to appease the enemy than destroy it. There are exemptions, to be sure, the My Lai response to VC sympathizers and the Phoenix Program being the most notable examples, but those are clearly exceptions to the rule. In example after example, our brave boys are sent overseas to die, yet are punished when they kill the enemy! Instead of being praised for putting down our enemies, they’re investigated by cowardly lawyers that lock up the patriots to help the enemy. Just look at what happened to the Blackwater contractors that defended themselves in Iraq.

The problem has only grown worse since Vietnam. Who today imagines our generals would have the temerity to ask for permission to launch an Arc Light strike or use napalm on the enemy, much less carry out the WWII-era firebombing campaigns of Curtis LeMay? Even the softie “enhanced interrogation” program was described as too harsh, just imagine if they executed prisoners like Pershing!

The Spartans told their soldiers to return with their shields or on them. Trump, echoing the same sentiment, said that he preferred war heroes that weren’t captured and was widely criticized for it. How far we’ve fallen from antiquity!

In the past century, America has grown weak and that weakness is now most evident in its military. If it wishies to win again (which, sadly, appears doubtful), it must shun the wokeness and weakness that have defined its existence over the past decade and return to the spirit of our ancestors.

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