BROTHERS-IN-ARMS

I am currently reading a historical novel called “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield. It is a most excellent read about the battle of Thermopylae. My brother recommended the book, and I have found it most rewarding.

I came across a paragraph in the book that struck me so brilliantly that I actually paused to read it over several times. If the book actually belonged to me instead of my brother I most likely would have highlighted the paragraph with a yellow highlighter.

Before I share this paragraph, let me just qualify for a moment why I found it to be so profound. I have mentioned before that I work as a security guard at a nuclear installation for the Department of Energy. I know that when I mention, “security guard”, the first vision to pop into one’s head is probably some Barney Fife look-alike, in polyester black pants, a tin badge on his shirt, and a roll of quarters on his belt so he can call the real cops should something happen. LOL.

In actuality we are quite a paramilitary guard force. My uniform is military BDUs, and the training I’ve received is more along military combat training. I can’t get into many specifics, so let it suffice when I say that we are better armed and equipped than your typical police officer patrolling the streets. We train and plan for terrorism. We try to mentally prepare ourselves for the possibility of combat, and make it a practice to believe that, YES it COULD really HAPPEN. With that said let me share this paragraph from the book, and if you can bare with me a brief commentary at the end.

Nothing fires the warrior’s heart more with courage than to find himself and his comrades at the point of annihilation, at the brink of being routed and overrun, and then to dredge not merely from one’s own bowels or guts but from one’s own discipline and training the presence of mind not to panic, not to yield to the possession of despair, but instead to complete those homely acts of order which Dienekes had ever declared the supreme accomplishment of the warrior: to perform the commonplace under far-from-commonplace conditions. Not only to achieve this for oneself alone, as Achilles or the solo champions of yore, but to do it as part of a unit, to feel about oneself one’s brothers-in-arms, in an instance like this of chaos and disorder, comrades whom one doesn’t even know, with whom one has never trained; to feel them filling the spaces alongside him, from spear side and shield side, fore and rear, to behold one’s comrades likewise rallying, not in a frenzy of mad possession-driven abandon, but with order and self-composure, each man knowing his role and rising to it, drawing strength from him as he draws it from them; the warrior in these moments finds himself lifted as if by the hand of a god. He cannot tell where his being leaves off and that of the comrade beside him begins. In that moment the phalanx forms a unity so dense and all-divining that it performs not merely at the level of a machine or engine of war but, surpassing that, to the state of a single organism, a beast of one blood and heart.

Now, I know that to truly appreciate these comments one must probably truly experience real combat. I can say that in training scenarios, I have experienced this to some degree. feeling a certain kinship with another guard who I don’t even know, or even a brotherly love for some clown I don’t even really like most of the time. At least I thought I didn’t . I think Pressfield has nailed something quite poignant here. I am still trying to get my arms all the way around it. I don’t know how many people come by to read my blog, but if any with insight could comment I’d appreciate it. Perhaps someone with real combat experience might be able to validate the above comments. If I can feel it in force on force training scenarios, then to what degree does it occur in the real situation?