Weapons, Warriors and Winning

Weapons, Warriors and Winning

Keith Nightingale

Our Nation in this election year is consumed by a search for the desired verities and qualities of the respective candidates each of us may wish for our next President.  Our individual values and choices are as varied as is the makeup of our population.  Social media, focus groups, spin doctors and scripted positions confuse us in attempts to curry a majority of the polity.  The candidates address issues with the resultant points and nuances of a well-oiled and financed political machine.  The voters seek truth and the candidates shroud the personal verities with adjectives, nuances and carefully contrived phrases.  They gingerly touch on our various foreign engagements-past, present and maybe.  The words are selected to both absolve the speaker of responsibility as well as to include a hint of verbal attractiveness in the hope that the people will not find fault with the utterance but also create a magnet for approval.  

Virtually all our present and potential engagements involve some form of Uniform placing his or her life on the line to accomplish the stated objectives of our civilian leadership. Those running for office are working hard to insure a cloud of non-specificity enshrouds the spoken word.  To those Uniforms engaged, it is a simple matter of risking death to serve a higher purpose and authority.  In a distant outpost, they may hear and see a candidate discuss their employment in nebulous and hesitant, nuanced terms.  But they have crystal clarity of the issue-Kill or be killed.  It is in fact, quite simple.  Everything else is dressing to resolve other needs by other people.   For those senior leaders that made the decision to engage, the truth may be more obscure even if somewhat perceived.  Some clarity is in order.

The final determinate as to success or failure of an engagement is a man with a weapon.  The holder is the final arbiter of success or failure.  No amount of exhortation, wish, prayer or desire of the policy makers unengaged will have the slightest effect. It always has been and always will be.  It is the Grunt, combined with his weapon that decides the outcome.  No amount of resources, policy applications, gross destruction by sophisticated technology or press conferences will mean a thing in terms of outcome absent that man standing on a piece of dirt we have assigned as the ultimate objective or condition. This is not a concept draped in generalities-it is an absolute.  An absolute throughout our history. 

No degree of high level obfuscation or dressing will change that truth.  Our engagement results will be made by a group of people, some too young to vote or drink, who will convert a National decision into personal success or failure.  It is to those Uniforms engaged we should direct our care and resourcing.  They do not vote as to participation-they agreed to that when they raised their hand at a reception station and they willingly accept the consequences.            

Leaders constantly strive for control of issues as candidates strive for control of the message.  The strategists seek the perfect engagement tools and the ability to guide outcomes on a desired path.  However, that control is always ultimately delegated to an element of dirty, exhausted, spent citizens.  They will decide victory, defeat or something more ambiguous and there is nothing the distant decision-makers can do to change the outcome of expended energies by those engaged.

Our candidates should each internally sequester a truth that will serve the winning candidate well-If you wish good outcomes, insure you have good Grunts.  They may not be invited to a State dinner, but above all others, they will have earned their place at the table.