The Department of War and the Warrior Ethos: In This World Are Tigers
Hegseth, the Korean War, and obeying reality
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is on a mission. He recently said, “…the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit not because we want war, no one here wants war, but it’s because we love peace.”
His mission is a momentous reframing of the spirit of the military: it is to bring back a warrior ethos. To remove “time out” in boot camp so recruits will not expect a “time out” when they get shot in combat. To make sure warfighters are not obese and thus deadweight in a firefight. To make sure America’s enemies think twice before provoking her into a war, but that if she must join, she ends it quickly with a biblical level of controlled violence.
There are those who disagree. “One, this is too harsh and cruel on the military. Two, training for war to keep the peace is how you end peace and make a war.”
What is strange is this comes from a place of compassion. But we know what happens when these opinions are implemented at the national level: it looks like the Korean War.
Let us look at one example.
Task Force Smith was there at the birth of the Korean War. The commanding General said to the Colonel leading the unit, “All we need is some men up there who won’t run when they see tanks.” To a warrior, this sounds suicidally motivating. To the young men of that era, this sounded like a game. They were the result of the “pampered, undisciplined, egalitarian army their society had long desired and had at last achieved.”1 In the words of T.R. Fehrenbach who not only wrote the history of the Korean War but also fought in it, the men had “grown fat” and had little use for a warrior ethos.
The Task Force dug in along a road. One artilleryman was concerned they only had six rounds of antitank ammunition, and asked the infantry officer what would happen if the North Koreans broke through. The officer smiled and said, “Don’t worry; they’ll never get that far.”
And then they saw a column of eight tanks grinding their way. Then it became thirty tanks.
The anti-tank rounds missed. Machine gun rounds bounced off the metal monsters. The Americans had no anti-tank mines, and they had no tanks. An officer shot twenty-two 2.36-inch rocket launchers into one tank and did not make a dent; the ammunition was left over from WWII and ineffective against new Soviet made tanks. At last, one tank out of the thirty was disabled. A North Korean jumped out of the tank and shot an American soldier.
The first American soldier was killed in Korea. The troops were not ready for this bloody baptism and started running away from the lines. But while the WWII equipment was useless, the WWII warriors were not. Many of the officers and senior enlisted—veterans of WWII—found themselves alone and powerless, and many died heroically in return for little gain. Over 36,000 more men would die. And many of them did not need to.
The significant point is this was not the fault of the warriors bleeding out in rice paddies—it was the fault of a culture that did not prepare them.
This is when “doing good” is murder.
So let us compare Korean and America cultures in the early days of the war to get to the heart of the matter.
The Koreans sprinted up 60º hills like mountain goats, while the Americans gasped and paled and quit halfway up in the 120º heat, even while under fire and getting shot in the back. The Koreans ate three rice balls a day and drank water from muddy ditches, while the Americans needed airdropped C-rations and purified water. Korean officers shot their enlisted men in the temple for running from a fight, while American officers tried—and often failed—to talk their retreating men into holding the lines to prevent a rout. Koreans soldiers screamed manzai while jumping in an American fox hole and bayoneting his enemy, while American soldiers ran without firing a shot. The Koreans castrated American POWs, wrapped them in barbed wire, and set them on fire, while the Americans put Korean POWs in a camp with rice and blankets. Korean soldiers were ready to die—any time and for any order—while American soldiers forgot it was a soldiers duty to suffer and even die so that others may live.
So on the one hand, we have a culture that hates human life and yet prepares its men for war, and on the other hand a culture that loves human life and does not want to prepare its men for war. The former mercilessly gives its men a chance for victory, the latter compassionately gives them next to none.
The root of the differences is this: the Koreans acknowledged reality and the Americans did not. This is why early in the war “…most of the men stood slack-jawed, staring at the advancing Koreans, as if unwilling to believe that these men were really trying to kill them.”
The young soldiers were taught they would never have to face evil. And then they were sent to war and faced evil. It turns out apes of flesh and blood are no match for tanks of metal and fire. They had to unlearn the teachings of their culture the hard way, and rediscovered an ancient and eternal truth: “in this world are tigers.”
So much for Korea. Now let us universalize the lesson.
Training for war and hardship is more likely to prevent a war than provoke one. In Korea, would positive vibes have prevented modern day South Korea from looking like North Korea? In WWII, would sinking our battleships and disabling our warplanes have made Hitler chill out and decide he actually liked Germany’s borders where they were? In our present day, would fattening our troops, convincing them their country is irredeemably flawed, and coddling them into a mental health crisis make Putin, Jinping, Khamenei, and Un change their minds about wanting 340,000,000 Americans and their allies across the globe dead?
Probably not. And yet America’s military was used as a petri dish for an anti-cohesive, anti-esprit, and anti-combat-effective ideology during the culture wars.
We are left with a catch-22. How does a culture take training for war seriously without a totalitarian dictator forcing it to do so, or without waiting for a stack of dead soldiers reminding it evil exists in this world? On an existential level, how does a culture remain free and peaceful without being passively exterminated by those who hate freedom and peace?
Hegseth, a warrior, summed up his speech well: “let no warrior cry out from the grave ‘if only I had been properly trained.’” Those who complain about military training as “too hard” and about the “idiocy of training for war to keep the peace”—especially when they know nothing of hardship and of war—ensure our warfighters are needlessly killed in the early stages of combat. But if our soldiers are killed too early and too often, then they risk losing the war. And if they lose the war, we risk losing the entirety of the soft and free way of life that spawns such ignorant ideas in the first place.
It seems, then, this is not only a military problem—it is a civilizational problem. My sense is if civilization wants to exist in a world where tigers are real, it too needs a warrior ethos. It too needs transcendence.
The lift is minimal. All a culture needs to do is ensure its soldiers—and citizens—are not weak, undisciplined, and unprepared to throw down when that culture’s freedom and peace are threatened. It is a matter of belief. A culture can peer beyond its privilege every now and then, and take the tigers pacing its borders and calling for its death seriously. It can do this with a warrior ethos that transcends the false promise of peace and safety, aggressively trains to fight for peace and safety, and therefore secures peace and safety.
In the end, a warrior ethos is a redefinition of compassion. Compassion is not to train those we love to expect the best case scenario. It is to train them for the worst. So that they may fight, and live.
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Fehrenbach, T. R. This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War. 50th Anniversary ed., Brassey’s, 1994. All information and examples regarding the Korean War were pulled from this excellent history.
Back in the dark ages of the 1970’s the Marine Corps was faced with the challenges of recovering from the Vietnam War. Two roads, continue as is, with enormous drug, race, and other social problems OR, return to our roots. What we now call the warrior ethos. The savior was a tall steel blue eyed soft spoken man from Oxford Mississippi, General Louis Hugh Wilson. Among many distinctions, he had been awarded our nations highest award for valor in combat. The Medal of Honor. He became the 26th Commandant of the Marine Corps in July of 1975, it was a job he really didn’t want for a myriad of reasons at the time. His brief speech at Marine Barracks 8th and I upon becoming CMC was as follows: “I call on all Marines to get in step and do so smartly!” That was it. No flowerly words just that admonition. He knew that fat lazy Marines could not and would not be tolerated “If I see a fat Marine he is in trouble, with me, but so is his commanding officer.” This writer could go on and on about what ole “chilly Willy” did to save the Corps, but he brought back our ethos, our discipline and Je reinvigorated and strengthened the Marine Air Ground Task Force so it would be READY. Of late say the last several years many senior Marine Corps flag officers have lost their will to face reality and face a Congress and American public and tell them the truth. We are no longer ready. Secretary of War Hegseth has reinvigorated the warrior spirit. One can hope that he starts “retiring” flag officers that refuse to “get in step and do so smartly.” Most Marines join because they want to be challenged and they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be pushed whether infantry, motor transport, wing units whatever. Our leadership writ large has let them down. So, what will it be America? A bunch of cry baby, baby boomers who dodged the draft in the ‘60’s who now rearmed with shiny walkers, freshly laundered tie dyed T shirts and open toed Birkenstocks fueled by powerful cannabis gummies and blood thinners with “resist” signs, or a return to a sense of larger higher purpose. It has to start somewhere and the SecWar laid it out plain as day. The more you sweat in peace time the less you bleed in war. This writer would accept orders back to the 2nd MarDiv today if it meant he could be part of returning our ethos to the young Marines so deserving of the “special trust and confidence” bestowed upon him by his nation; giving example to any and all that leadship and ethos are a way of living, it is what we do. Ya wanna talk the talk?!? Well then little campers walk the walk. Now Sam hand me that walking stick, my back is cranky this morning but there is work to be done!
I agree with you. There is another aspect of this reorienting of our military's focus that I have yet to see anyone address.
It is clear that there are many people who hate America. There are not just here in the US, but overseas. They have told me to my face.
There are a lot of people around the world who love America. They also have told me this to my face.
Here in the US we call those love America, Patriots. They love their country. Many of them has served in the military.
My concern is how we understand patriotism and love of country, especially when applied to the military. Essentially, we ask our warfighters to kill the enemy as an act of love. There is a huge psychological problem with this mindset.
I did not serve in the military. My ancestors did. They did not serve out of love of country, but out of duty and honor.
Of course, these are old values that today only find their continued belief in the military services.
What is odd about this framework of service is that it challenges both those who love America and those who hate America. In effect, we live in a time of sentimentalization. We feel love or we feel hate, and that is how we define ourselves.
I hope the outcome of Sec. Hegseth's mission is the creation of a culture that will attract people to military service who find duty, honor, and service appealing. If so, then I also expect to see this motivation to expand into other sectors of our society.