Sheepdog Blood Leaves Queasy Stomachs
The noted psychologist Viktor Frankel posited that there are only two types of humans, the decent and the indecent. But, Frankel did not recognize that there are two subsets of decent people: the majority sheep; and the minority sheepdogs. The indecent are called wolves.
LTC (Ret) Dave Grossman wrote the excellent article On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs. He could not be more correct in his assessment. The LTC knows what he is talking about because he is a sheepdog, and he has lived a warrior life in the company of fellow sheepdogs protecting the sheep from the wolves.
The peace that the sheep demand and enjoy comes at a personal cost to the sheepdogs and their families. It has always been so. The repetition of police and military funerals is a constant reminder that a price is being paid by some to the benefit of all.
Police sheepdogs are constantly killed and injured, and many are cashiered from their professions as a result of on-duty injuries. These traumatic events scarcely cause a ripple in societal awareness.
Military sheepdog death and injuries are more dramatic in that they are generally clustered and associated with high profile military conflicts. For some sheep, it is the deaths and injuries to the military sheepdogs that slams smack dab into a wall of denial about the nature of the world. The result is a tendency to cut and run to assuage queasy stomachs.
The Los Angeles Times did a three part story on wounded military personnel and the great success that the military medical system is having in saving the lives of personnel that would have died in previous wars. Read about it here, here and here.
Marine Corps LTC Tim Maxwell wrote a terrific piece titled A Wounded Warrior. Maxwell is a wounded warrior, and he reiterates the theme presented in the Los Angeles Times articles that our wounded warriors are anxious to heal and get back with their units and into the fight. That’s a quality to which many sheep can not relate.
The great tragedy of the Vietnam War was that a good portion of the sheep lost their moral courage when the anti-war propaganda injected into American politics by Communist provocateurs and leftist intelligentsia exploited the sheep’s natural state of pacifism. As a result, the American public turned its back on the sacrifices of its own sheepdogs and conscript colleagues.
George Orwell wrote, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” We are a society of sheep and we can not exist without out our sheepdogs. We sheep need to stiffen our spines and confront any denial that a cost must be paid for our survival. Let’s have no more Vietnam disgraces. Let’s honor our sheepdog warriors and stop the whining and hand-wringing. Our warriors ask for no more than our support. And, you don’t honor and support our sheepdogs by asking them to withdraw from the battlefield that has soaked up their blood. Their blood, not sheep blood!!
If the American sheep don’t come together and heed the advice of their sheepdogs, the pitiful bleats will be mixed with the gurgling sound of spilling sheep blood as Islamofascist wolves butcher in the name of Allah. Come to think of it, the gurgling was loud on September 11, 2001.
LTC (Ret) Dave Grossman wrote the excellent article On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs. He could not be more correct in his assessment. The LTC knows what he is talking about because he is a sheepdog, and he has lived a warrior life in the company of fellow sheepdogs protecting the sheep from the wolves.
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.
The peace that the sheep demand and enjoy comes at a personal cost to the sheepdogs and their families. It has always been so. The repetition of police and military funerals is a constant reminder that a price is being paid by some to the benefit of all.
Police sheepdogs are constantly killed and injured, and many are cashiered from their professions as a result of on-duty injuries. These traumatic events scarcely cause a ripple in societal awareness.
Military sheepdog death and injuries are more dramatic in that they are generally clustered and associated with high profile military conflicts. For some sheep, it is the deaths and injuries to the military sheepdogs that slams smack dab into a wall of denial about the nature of the world. The result is a tendency to cut and run to assuage queasy stomachs.
The Los Angeles Times did a three part story on wounded military personnel and the great success that the military medical system is having in saving the lives of personnel that would have died in previous wars. Read about it here, here and here.
Marine Corps LTC Tim Maxwell wrote a terrific piece titled A Wounded Warrior. Maxwell is a wounded warrior, and he reiterates the theme presented in the Los Angeles Times articles that our wounded warriors are anxious to heal and get back with their units and into the fight. That’s a quality to which many sheep can not relate.
The great tragedy of the Vietnam War was that a good portion of the sheep lost their moral courage when the anti-war propaganda injected into American politics by Communist provocateurs and leftist intelligentsia exploited the sheep’s natural state of pacifism. As a result, the American public turned its back on the sacrifices of its own sheepdogs and conscript colleagues.
George Orwell wrote, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” We are a society of sheep and we can not exist without out our sheepdogs. We sheep need to stiffen our spines and confront any denial that a cost must be paid for our survival. Let’s have no more Vietnam disgraces. Let’s honor our sheepdog warriors and stop the whining and hand-wringing. Our warriors ask for no more than our support. And, you don’t honor and support our sheepdogs by asking them to withdraw from the battlefield that has soaked up their blood. Their blood, not sheep blood!!
If the American sheep don’t come together and heed the advice of their sheepdogs, the pitiful bleats will be mixed with the gurgling sound of spilling sheep blood as Islamofascist wolves butcher in the name of Allah. Come to think of it, the gurgling was loud on September 11, 2001.
posted by Paul Coambs | 8:56 PM
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