Warrior, or soldier - Difference?

[Piparskeggr]

Following a couple of recent and current threads; I think this might prompt some good discussion on its own.

What makes a soldier, a warrior instead?

A former acquaintance was a "Green Beret" sergeant, heavy weapons and medical were his specialties. He had a comrade who was a Lakota Siuox, and they used to talk quite a bit about this topic, from what Steve told me (seems to be a lot of Stevens/-Stephens-Stefns-Steves, and so forth around Heathenry ,-) his Lakota buddy said that his grandfather spoke with him before he enlisted about their warrior tradition.

The main gist, in my understanding is that a Warrior is one who will willingly take up the "Burden of the Bones." That is, be the protector of all that his People have built with their lives, by paying in service to his people, the community, their way of life, and by giving his own life if necessary.

A Warrior will do this for others, not for themselves.

This is the Burden to which I refer in many of my poems.

A Warrior is, by nature, a believer in something beyond himself.

When I went to military college in the pursuit of a degree, which would have gotten me a commission, I did it with the desire to make a career of serving my people, my society and my country. I did it out of a sense of duty to those who had gone before me.

One could say I was a Warrior-apprentice. I was neither knowledgeable enough nor mature enough to realize the full scope of my quest. I failed, after 4 1/2 years of trying, I had a good education, but no degree and no commission.

The impulse to serve stayed with me, but my civil responsibilities had changed. I was engaged to Anita, who did succeed in getting a degree and commission, and shared that sense of duty. I had loans to pay back, so i took a job at an electronics plant as a line supervisor.

I shifted focus to helping her succeed, and to become a good husband.

After a few years, I did enlist, but the same passion was not there. I was good at what I did, even getting an award for a "model for the 9th Air Force" defensive perimeter during war games while I was a combat engineer. (I was tasked with the security of our work area, in which we were repairing a damaged runway. The "game" judges looked over my preparations and calculated that the attack they had planned would have suffered over 95% casualties at the perimeter, and with the surprises I had inside, it would have failed utterly.)

Any task I was given, I tried my best to do my best, but it was work, still carrying the Burden, in a way, but it was an avocation, no longer a vocation.

I got out after 9 years.

A soldier is (as I have been) a man who has taken a job to do, will do it and then goes home. This is the nature of most who "follow the flag" in the US of A. It is the nature of the way we fought our wars before the occupations after the Second World War, before Korea became a war with no real conclusion, before Viet Nam micromanaged out of Washington DC, and so on.

I have been able to find no career soldiers in my family tree.

Any warriors are lost in the mists of time and tides...

I have found many men (and a few women) who enlisted "for the duration" of whichever conflict occurred in which people living in what has become the US of A, from the Pequot War of the 1630's to the present fracas in the sands and mountains of western and central Asia have marched, fought and died.

They saw the need of protecting (or extending) their lands and way of life, did the job and went home.

I am, at the end of the day, at heart, a soldier, still.

[Invictus_88]

What's wrong with the view that a soldier is someone paid to serve in an army, and a warrior is someone whose military service has been romanticised beyond its human proportions - or someone who simply exists in fiction? Rambo, perhaps. Or someone else of that ilk?

[ironman]

My Father, Grandfather, and Great grandfather all served in the British Army.
My father did national service of 3 years working as a radio operator, he was born in 1928 so when he was 18 it was 1946.
He always talked about the comradeship of service, i have lots of photo's of him and his squad of mates.
My dad was born and raised in a city pub, he was very well liked and everyone who met him did not have a bad word to say about him.
At my fathers funeral, a group of men came forward to pay respects to my family.
A few of them i knew from being introduced to them years ago, they all were born in 1928 and proud of the fact that they were still a company of soldiers still after all those years.
My Grandfather, i have recollection of him showing me his WW1 medals, to which i now own, he never did utter a word of his experiences in the trenches.
Grandad's name was Alfred, he was a very tall man, very large boned individual, he came back from the war to start an apprenticeship in the same engineering factory as my great grandfather, my elder brother inherited his gold watch which the owner gave him on retiring at 65, my brother also worked at the same company for a time, 4 generations of my family has worked for the same company.
My Grandfather lost 2 cousins in WW1 and a brother, knowing this has made me realise that there could have been more of my family members in the city with our unusual surname if it was not for WW1, but that said the ones that came home have all thrived.

[Psychonaut]

I would definitely say that the relationship is that warrior (A) is a subset of soldier (B) which is a subset of citizen (C):

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5622&stc=1&d=1282512297

Being of subset B myself, and only having had infrequent contact with real warriors, it's hard for me to pin down exactly what the differentiating factors are. But for anyone who's spent time around them, that there is a distinction is blindingly obvious.

[Piparskeggr]

Good afternoon;


What's wrong with the view that a soldier is someone paid to serve in an army, and a warrior is someone whose military service has been romanticised beyond its human proportions - or someone who simply exists in fiction? Rambo, perhaps. Or someone else of that ilk?

Nothing wrong with that opinion whatsoever.:thumb001:

A Warrior is in many ways a romantic (in the non amor or eros sense) figure in history and story; heroic, strong, an ideal, a figure of mythic manner, who will always come in the time of his people's direst hour: Frederick Barbarossa biding under the mountain, Arthur sleeping in Avalon, Csaba, son of Atilla, who rides the steppe of the Milky Way, Fionn mac Cumhaill, in his cave with the Fianna, Tecumseh the Shawnee Prophet (sleeping, not slain) and so on.

Perhaps idealizing such figures is a necessary part of our human way of dealing with events beyond our control, and part of our hopes for the future. It is also a way in which we keep a "touchstone" of sorts in hand.

Then there are men of war who are mislabeled as warriors. Fictional characters such as the aforementioned Rambo come to mind. Historic figures such as Sir John Hawkwood could fit...

But, I have met several man over the course of my life who fit the Warrior mold, as well as wear the mantle of soldier, in my mind and heart.

One such was Command Sergeant Major Howard A. Brosseau, US Army (retired), who I knew as Lieutenant Colonel Brosseau when he was assistant commandant at Norwich my last couple of years there. The rank was in the Vermont Militia, being the cadet corps and staff of Norwich. I believe they are still (as in my day) considered a reserve unit of the Vermont National Guard.

CSM Brosseau enlisted in the last US horse cavalry outfit in 1936 (one of 3 men I knew who were of this vintage). He retired in 1978 after a 4 year hitch as the top NCO in charge of the cadet corps at West Point, the US Military Academy.

He saw front line combat in WW 2, Korea and Viet Nam. He volunteered for the 1st parachute platoon and was one of the first to jump HALO. He was a Paratrooper or Ranger for most of his career.

Yet, this penultimate soldier, was a true warrior to me as he would always emphasize to we cadets that our duty was to Family, Comrades, Community and Country, in that order, and that we should live our lives with Truth, Honor, Perseverance and Devotion.

Sergeant Major Brosseau (calling him Colonel seemed a demotion), man, could he scream at you...but the quiet words of disappointment cut so much worse.

He spent 10 years at Norwich, a total of 52 years in uniform, enlisted at age 18. That's not a job.

The other 2 I mentioned above...

Chief Master Sergeant Bobby Fields, enlisted at age 16 (he lied to get in): US Army (horse cavalry) 1936 - US Air Force Reserve 1986.

Chief Master Sergeant Bill Fortune, enlisted at age 24: US Army (horse cavalry) 1936 - US Air Force 1972

Bobby and Bill were 2 of the best soldiers with whom I've ever served or worked, Howard was a warrior.

I was, and am, a Soldier.

I guess it's kind of like art, or porn, you know it when you see it.

[Eldritch]

Well, you have to understand that I think about these things mainly in terms of the Finnish words for which "warrior" and "soldier" are the most close English equivalents; and therefore I'll say that being a warrior is a type of mentality or predilection, whereas a being soldier is merely something you do, either because you've enrolled yourself into an army or been conscripted into one.

[Nodens]

However, it seems that in this context one should speak of a "soldierly" rather than of a military or warrior element. In fact, the term "soldier" originally referred to a man who engaged in the armed profession for pay. It is a term that referred to the mercenary troops a town hired and supported in order to defend itself or to attack its enemies, since citizens did not engage in war, preferring instead to take care of their private business. Opposite to the "soldier" was the type of the warrior and the member of the feudal aristocracy; the caste to which this type belonged was the central nucleus in a corresponding social organization. This caste was not at the service of the bourgeois class but rather ruled over it, since the class that was protected depended on those who had the right to bear arms.

Despite the mandatory draft and the establishment of standing armies, the role played by the military man in modern democracies is that of a mere "soldier." As I have said, modern democracies distinguish between military and civic virtues and emphasize the latter, upholding them as the most important ones in life. According o the most recent formulation of the corresponding ideology, armies should be used only as an international police force to maintain the "peace"; in most cases, this amounts to allowing wealthy nations to live undisturbed. Otherwise, aside from any pretense, what is repeated is the example of the East India Company and similar enterprises: the armed forces are used by modern democracies to impose or retain an economic hegemony; to gain new markets and to acquire raw materials; and to create new space for capital seeking investment and profit. No mention is made of mercenaries, and many nice and noble words are uttered, appealing to the ideas of country, civilization, and progress. And yet, all things considered, things do not change much: we still have the "soldier" working for the "bourgeois" or for the "merchant"; the "merchant," in the wider sense of the word, is the social type or caste that is at the forefront in this capitalist civilization.

More specifically, the democratic view does not admit that the political class should have military traits and structure; this would be the worst-case scenario and amount to a real "militarism." In modern democracies, the members of the bourgeoisie must govern the affairs of the state as politicians and as representatives of a numerical majority. But, as is well known, in modern democracies the ruling class is often at the service of economic, financial, labor, or industrial interests and groups.

This order of ideas is opposed by the truth professed by those who uphold the higher right of a warrior view of life, which has its own spirituality, values, and ethics. Such a view finds a specific expression in everything that has particular pertinence to war and the military profession, yet it is not reduced to or exhausted by it; it is susceptible to manifestation in other forms and domains as well, and to imparting an overall tone to a given, unmistakable type of socio-political organization. In this context the "military" values approximate the specifically "warrior" ones, and it is regarded as desirable that they join political and ethical values and supply the State with a firm foundation. The anti-political bourgeois view of what is "spirit" is rejected here, as are the humanistic-bourgeois ideals of so-called "culture" and "progress"; a limit to the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois spirit is established in the State's articulations and overall order. This does not mean that the military must manage the affairs of the state (with the exception of emergency cases, as recently happened in Spain, Turkey, and Greece, in order to contain the spread of subversion), but rather that virtues, disciplines, and feelings of a military type acquire preeminence and a superior dignity over everything that is of a bourgeois type. We may add that this view does not uphold the "barracks as an ideal," nor does it seek a strict regimentation of daily life (one of the traits of totalitarianism), which is synonymous with a stiffening and with a mechanical and obtuse discipline. Love for hierarchy; relationships of obedience and command; courage; feelings of honor and loyalty; specific forms of active impersonality capable of producing anonymous sacrifice; frank and open relationships from man to man, from one comrade to another, from leader to follower—all these are the characteristic, living values that are predominant in the aforementioned view. These are the values found in what I have called the Mannerbund. Everything that has exclusive pertinence to the army and warfare is only a detail in a wider order of things.

-Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins

[Piparskeggr]

Ok, a quote from Evola is fine...but what is the opinion of your own mind?

I can not have a conversation with a ghost.

Well, at least not and be thought sane.