KILL OR GET KILLED
In World War I, a German intelligence report described American soldiers that had been captured on the battlefield as follows: “The troops are fresh and full of straightforward confidence. A remark of one of the prisoners is indicative of their spirit,” the report noted, “We kill or get killed.” Though a prisoner, the soldier continued to look beyond the present, beyond the pain and humiliation—beyond himself—with an understanding that the warrior must fight on while he still has breath in him—regardless of the pain, regardless of the consequences, and regardless of his condition.
A LIFE WITH PURPOSE
It was 8 June 1918. The young Marines pressed their bodies into the earth as German machine gun rounds rent the air and tore at the foliage just above their heads. Just minutes away, the platoon would be ordered to surge forward into the leaded fury of the German field of fire. At that predestined moment, a veteran of many battles emerged, exposing himself to the boiling cauldron of the battlefield. Turning to the reluctant souls still clinging to the ground of their last hope for survival, this mighty warrior yelled to his men, “For Christ’s sake, men—come on! Do you want to live forever?”
A TRUE WARRIOR defines his life in terms of genuine and significant purpose. He finds his identity in principles and values greater than his own life, and his sense of destiny empowers him to resist even the slightest notion that he is a weak and hapless victim, filled with fear, and unable to fight.
WARRIOR’S NOTEBOOK ™ is about those soldiers in Winslow Homer’s painting, captured, yet still hoping for new direction and a new purpose that would reinvigorate their lives, and bring hope back into their battered souls. It is about those United States Army doughboys in the First World War, who were captured in body, but were fighting on in spirit. It is about First Sergeant Dan Daly, USMC, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, not once, but twice, in two wars. Sgt. Daly was the consummate fighting man who placed his honor and the cause for which he fought, above his safety and his life on a hot June day in a place called Belleau Wood.
Finally, Warrior’s Notebook™ is about you, and it is about me. It is about divine mandates and human failings; it is about integrity and honor; it is about purpose and meaning; it is about why you matter; why you are at war; and why you need to stay in the fight. It is also about instilling a perspective of hope—a confident view of life, regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of the enemies arrayed against you. These short stories, historical illustrations, quotes and teachings will challenge you to wade into life with confidence and purpose—sometimes falling back, sometimes face down in the mud—but always finding renewal and the spirit to soldier on.
These dispatches and studies were written over many years. Most of them were forged in the furnace of affliction and those will be particularly meaningful to warriors facing great difficulties and tribulations, whether inside or outside of the military. The dispatches will also encourage all who read them to keep their spirit boiling with drive and purpose, founded upon and energized by truth; and to avoid the fatal wounds of all warriors, passivity and disuse, and the threat of a shapeless and meaningless existence. As in Ulysses, the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the warrior must always be forging ahead:
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life!”…
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
And not to yield. Hold that thought.
Col James R. Harper III, USMCR (Ret.)