Posted on 04/18/2005 1:09:52 PM PDT by Free and Armed
What would John Wayne do?
After almost every column or blogpost I've written about the various idiosyncracies of women, some woman writes to complain that I never criticize men. Of course, there's not exactly a shortage of male-bashing in the mainstream media today, to say nothing of chick rags like Cosmopolitan, Ms., Self and other variants on the Me, Myself and I theme so popular with women.
And while there is something about the modern American man that is absolutely worthy of criticism, I don't think it's exactly what these feminists had in mind. For you see, the main problem with men today is that they are not men, but frightened little boys – afraid of their bosses, their wives, their girlfriends and their government. They are afraid of their employees, their children and their children's teachers.
They are not men because the hallmark of a real man is one who is not ruled by fear. Consider the real men of history, the immortals whose names we still honor today. Leonidas and his Three Hundred did not run before the Persian army at Thermopylae even though they knew they would fall before the host of Xerxes. Winston Churchill, a military and political failure, did not quail before the might of Nazi Germany, but inspired the nation of Britain to stand with him. And not even years in the Soviet gulags could silence the brave voice of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose iron will enabled him to outlast the very government that imprisoned him.
Can you imagine one of these men meekly submitting to the harsh words of a boss? Can you imagine Cicero cowering before the sharp tongue of a nagging wife, who did not cower before an emperor? Or the Apostle Paul remaining silent for fear someone might take offense to his words?
What men lack today is a defining point separating boyhood from manhood. The mere accumulation of years is not enough, for as the saying goes, a woman is, but a man must become. It is interesting to see the difference between one's friends who enter the Marine Corps and those who enter college – four years later, there is seldom a question that the Marine is indeed a man, but far more often than not, the college graduate is simply a post-adolescent version of what he was before.
For the knowledge of manhood is the assurance that one has faced the test and passed. This is not a test of what one knows, but the test of character that only comes from facing your fears. As society has become safer, and in many ways better thanks to technology, it has also eliminated many of the tests that boys of previous generations were forced to face in becoming men.
In my boyhood, I envied my uncle and my grandfather. They were men. The much-decorated Marine veterans of five wars between them, they both survived everything the Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Iraqis could throw at them and no longer feared anything but God. When at 71, my grandfather broke his hand on the jaw of a carjacker who foolishly thought a .38 revolver and a six-inch height advantage should suffice to cow an old man, I asked him if he hadn't been afraid.
He shrugged and said that he figured if Guadacanal and Tarawa didn't kill him, no young buck with a popgun stood a chance.
But too many young men today lack such role models. And yet, they seek to find their manhood as if by instinct, all too often making do with inadequate substitutes such as fraternities and gangs. At the time, I did not know I was looking to test myself when my best friend and I joined our martial-arts dojo after being informed by the Marine recruiter that the Gulf War would be over before we finished basic training and our assistance, while appreciated, was surplus to requirements. In retrospect, however, that's precisely what we were doing.
It isn't until he faces the test that a boy begins to understand that it isn't the absence of fear that's the issue, it's how you accept that fear and face it. It is the boy who gets knocked down ... it is the man who rises again in the full knowledge of what's coming next.
Women are not to blame for the demasculization of the American man. It is men who have allowed this to happen, it is the fathers who shirk their responsibility to their sons and the young men who choose the soft and easy way of leisure over the less comfortable path of discipline who are to blame.
So, young man, if you harbor any doubts in your head about your manhood, let me assure you they are correct. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them"
"It isn't until he faces the test that a boy begins to understand that it isn't the absence of fear that's the issue, it's how you accept that fear and face it. It is the boy who gets knocked down ... it is the man who rises again in the full knowledge of what's coming next."
"How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?"
I dont like boxing but it taught me a valuable lesson. You have to be willing to get up and take the hit some time.
I still can remember Coach Richie Meade's (he is the Navy lacrosse coach who was in the NCAA championships last year)
"You dont have any boxing skill but you were willing to hang in there while taking a beating... Ill give you a B."
Thanks again Coach.
All I know is that if I ever get in a fight with someone im breaking there dangum knees. Because its not about whats fair its about winning...
My Dad caught me running from a fight ........ just once.
My Dad, no great pillar of humanity, was decent at a few things ...
Numero uno was this: never, ever run from a fight. Don't start fights, but if started, stay, and if possible, while winning, make SURE the dude regretted starting it.
But even if I was doomed to get the total s**T kicked out of me, he informed me that I had two choices: take it, and make sure the beating I received was joined with an incredibly painful tax for him making the effort he'd never forget, or else run home, and find ..... him, waiting for me.
Like I said, my Dad caught me running from a fight ........ just once.
"If anything goes wrong - anything - Your fault, my fault, nobody's fault - I'm gonna blow your head off."
Big Jake.
Cicero was known for many things. Bravery was not chief among them. He did cower and run away from Caesar and Antony, among others. He once got so flustered when Pompey put troops into the forum (for Cicero's protection), that he couldn't speak at a trial.
And he had a nagging wife, who pushed him around a lot!
"Numero uno was this: never, ever run from a fight. Don't start fights, but if started, stay, and if possible, while winning, make SURE the dude regretted starting it."
I never been in any fighting situations (not counting the ones when I was a little kid), except for one last year. I was walking through campus in the middle of the night with my guard completely lowered, when suddenly two guys stepped in front of me and hit me in the throat, then got in my face challenging me. Having been caught with my guard down and stunned by this, I ran away. Few times have I felt so ashamed of myself, especially after all my tough talk about self-defense and the fact I was so blatantly confronted and should have been willing to beat the living sh*t out of them, despite their numerical advantage. So yeah, I learned that same lesson a bit differently, as well as an important lesson that if you get caught with your guard down, you won't be prepared or as willing to fight back.
From El Dorado
After Duke disarms her and throws her rifle in the river, the engenue says, "I could have sworn I didn't miss."
Duke takes his left hand from behind his back, wipes the blood on her shirt and says, "You didn't."
All I know is that a boy will never get this lesson in school. (Why, a boy who learned this kind of radical lesson might grow up to do something impulsive...like voting "No" on a school bond issue!) If he doesn't have a father figure to learn it from, he is going to have trouble making this critical step toward adulthood.
I wish my Dad had been that way. He would tell me to stand up to them, but never showed me how. I was smaller than my peers, and I learned that if you stand your ground and can't hold it your face will get rubbed in it.
"....I learned that if you stand your ground and can't hold it your face will get rubbed in it."
My Dad said taking a beating was an inevitable fact of life - but he said also that my response was going to determine how often it would happen in the future.
For some reason, fighting back, to the extent you utterly land a painful blow, will cause the stronger foe to think twice before he decides to do it again ... but also, other would-be foes tend to say "wow ... I better pack a lunch should I choose to take on that fellow".
(This is one of many reasons I so utterly detest Bill Clinton - in effect he provoked many of the Islamic disasters we're dealing w/ right now .... by being weak. But, the word is this: his step dad had a LOT to do with that).
Anyway, I take heart from the fact that the Big DAD up there is definitely big enough to overcome the earthly Dad's shortcomings regardless of what they are.
For although my Dad did teach me how to fight ... he failed to teach me how to love. And I have three kids living away from me with my ex wife to show for it. Even w/ my second wife, I almost repeated the same mistakes ... until a grace intervention saved the day.
Anyway, what irony .... learning how to love, and then being able to teach it to your kids .... that is the greatest fight of them all. And it's a fight Satan has a vested interest in helping everyone lose - while at the same time, numbing us so we don't feel too bad about it.
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