The Jump Blog

And I’ll say it again. If you aren’t reading Jack at Texas Music then you are as wrong as… well… there is no clean way to finish that sentence so I’ll just say the he is one of the most talented bloggers out there today, bar none. I wish I could write half as well and be a quarter as poignant. Go read him now. When you are done you can come back.

Done? He’s good, no?

On the subject of the warrior ethos allow me to relate a story.

I was chock full of Army Values before they called them that. In 1994 I left basic training and AIT ready to jump the Pacific Ocean with a stride, land in Pyongyang and spit in Kim Il Sung’s eye. I was highly motivated, dedicated, and committed to the organization that had just saved my life. At the end of a draining tour in Korea in 1995 where my primary function was drinking, driving a forklift, PT, and driving maintaining and training operators for tractor trailers I was thoroughly disheartened and sick of the Army lie.

My co-workers weren’t motivated. They hated the Army, hated Korea, and hated “soldiering”. We weren’t warriors and we knew it. I came down on orders for Ft. Bragg’s COSCOM (Corps Support Command) and thought I would try something desperate: I volunteered for Airborne training. I was accepted early and flew out of Korea 45 days early. I made it through the training (which was easier than I thought) and was assigned to 4/325 Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division (which was tougher than I thought).

I was immersed in the warrior culture. My flimsy “soldierization” was replaced with rock solid “warriorization”. I became a paratrooper and I immediately saw the difference between this Army and the one I had left. The Esprit de Corps, the morale, the pride, the aggressive spirit, the fierce loyalty. Now this was what I wanted out of the Army, it was what I had in Basic and what was missing in Korea. The Warrior ethos was drilled into me so thoroughly in that unit that it will never leave. It’s why I tear up at the national anthem, on Veteran’s Day, and Memorial Day. And it was drilled home in one speech, and one cadence.

My unit had just been through a particularly bad experience and a hero of mine, Lt Col Fondacaro, had called us all together to talk to us. We were going home on leave, preparing to ship out to Bosnia. He said something very close to:

“Sometime down the line, a few years from now when you guys are back in civilian life, you’ll look back on this time and be proud of yourselves, just like I am proud of you. Just remember what you were, and that you are special, you do something very few people choose to do, and while it may not seem important right now, in ten years when you are standing at that cocktail party with Bill Gates and someone says: “What did you do in the nineties?” You can grab that champagne glass out of their hand and say

“I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, just what in hell did you do?”

When he said those words we all grew ten feet, I would have charged hell wearing a gasoline jock for that man then, and I still would today. He made sure that we felt that connection to our heritage, that we were well trained, and that we were justifiably proud of our prowess. He made us love ourselves for being good and I’ll always love him for that.

Then there was the cadence.

We had just been sliced up on Towle Stadium the day before and the command thought it important to get us back out there. So, the next day, we lined up and marched off of Deglopper Field, down Ardennes, and made a right turn on Bastogne street, heading for the dusty parking lot of Towle Stadium. This course would take us within yards of the shooter’s position and right past the scene of some of the worst carnage of the previous day. Our First Sergeant (the glorious 1Sgt Rangel) was not there so an E-8 Master Sergeant was filling in for the day, calling cadence. We must have started to sound sheepish at the turn into the stadium because as we began to file in he called this one:

“Born in the backwoods
Raised by a bear
Two sets of teeth
and a double coat of hair
steel trap jaws
and cast iron balls
I’m a mean mother humper
I’m a grunt, by Gawd”

That one cadence did more for our spirits than all of the pep talks in the world. It was a defiant “F-you” to everyone. CNN, and the grief counselors, and the press that you couldn’t get away from, hanging out in the worst bars to get the worst angle on the story.

There’s a reason why “Leadership” is the first Army value. Those two men, through their leadership, exemplified the warrior ethos and ingrained it deeper in me.

And it was peacetime.

Today most units, elite or not, have undergone the same change that I underwent going from Korea to Ft. Bragg. These units and their soldiers are daily living out the things that we in my “elite” unit could only pay lip service to. Sincere lip service yes, but lip service nonetheless. These units today are living it everyday and I can’t help but think that those silly little wallet cards and cheesy little green I.D. tag ornaments passed to every soldier in 1999 might have stood in good stead for the soldiers of today who live those values. Not every unit had a Lt. Col Fondacaro to let them know what was expected, but every soldier had that little tag saying “this is what you are”.

And what those tags said they were is what they became; Warriors that make this paratrooper proud.

TrackedBack at Mudville Gazette
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