znorris
04-21-08, 09:25 PM
I started looking about six months ago for a site discussing the way of a professional warrior, or any site of substance concerning professional warriors. Unfortunately i have yet to find it.
What I'm looking for is a site that educates us, pushes us mentally while telling us that you also have to learn from experience. Just about any hobby, or profession out there has its own little niche on the net except warriors. I can find people trying to sell us things, give opinions that i agree or disagree with concerning the politics of war. Whats right or wrong about our new PT uniform but i can't seem to find a site talking about our leadership traits or core values. Actually taking those things from memorized rhetoric to discussing how we can mold those into your daily life.
Nearly every day I hear people (including myself) saying how much better we are than other branches of service or civilians. I was out of the Corps for a year (just got back in this past November) and during that time I asked myself what does make us different? I feel like sometimes we were ingrained in boot camp with this mentality and our lack of humility holds us back from wanting to become better Marines.
Most Marines i know try to distance themselves from the Corps every day after work, and on the weekends. I understand that Marines are burnt out from work and so they feel like they need to turn to excessive drinking (which i have done plenty). I feel like we should be promoting the idea that boot camp didn't make you a perfect Marine. That it made you a very basic, very limited Marine. But by helping one another we can become a better, more well rounded (we will all have to become well rounded as we become more decentralized) warrior culture. Turning this 9-5 into what i think it should be, a new way of life.
Yes its obvious the Corps is changing, as it has done in the past, but we shouldn't turn away from it. If anything we need to embrace it because its going to happen whether we like it or not. Think of all the things you could search for on youtube right now, educational things, i just found 786 videos on "how to whistle" but can't seem to find much in the area of PME (professional military education). For instance the other day I had a class (from a civilian) on thermal and night vision optics. It will be my duty to re-teach this gear to the Marines in my platoon. Most all of the thermal optics had a video output on them. I couldn't help but wonder why someone hadn't made a video demonstrating things like range finding (something the instructor said is pretty much to hard to care about), or a simple video on the menu system within the optics. I'm a comm bubba and if my Marines get tasked to use these on our next deployment i have to admit that they aren't going to have any time with the gear. A brief hip pocket class at best. Why don't we take it upon ourselves to disseminate all the information we can in all the ways we can. I will be happy when one day i see Marines in the field watching/listening to short PMEs on their IPODS and surfing the net to become more proficient as a warrior.
What i want to see is an American warrior culture, one that embraces change and is unrelenting in its path to becoming better.
Semper Fidelis,
Zach Norris
"individualism is achieved by independent action and private thinking"
What I'm looking for is a site that educates us, pushes us mentally while telling us that you also have to learn from experience. Just about any hobby, or profession out there has its own little niche on the net except warriors. I can find people trying to sell us things, give opinions that i agree or disagree with concerning the politics of war. Whats right or wrong about our new PT uniform but i can't seem to find a site talking about our leadership traits or core values. Actually taking those things from memorized rhetoric to discussing how we can mold those into your daily life.
Nearly every day I hear people (including myself) saying how much better we are than other branches of service or civilians. I was out of the Corps for a year (just got back in this past November) and during that time I asked myself what does make us different? I feel like sometimes we were ingrained in boot camp with this mentality and our lack of humility holds us back from wanting to become better Marines.
Most Marines i know try to distance themselves from the Corps every day after work, and on the weekends. I understand that Marines are burnt out from work and so they feel like they need to turn to excessive drinking (which i have done plenty). I feel like we should be promoting the idea that boot camp didn't make you a perfect Marine. That it made you a very basic, very limited Marine. But by helping one another we can become a better, more well rounded (we will all have to become well rounded as we become more decentralized) warrior culture. Turning this 9-5 into what i think it should be, a new way of life.
Yes its obvious the Corps is changing, as it has done in the past, but we shouldn't turn away from it. If anything we need to embrace it because its going to happen whether we like it or not. Think of all the things you could search for on youtube right now, educational things, i just found 786 videos on "how to whistle" but can't seem to find much in the area of PME (professional military education). For instance the other day I had a class (from a civilian) on thermal and night vision optics. It will be my duty to re-teach this gear to the Marines in my platoon. Most all of the thermal optics had a video output on them. I couldn't help but wonder why someone hadn't made a video demonstrating things like range finding (something the instructor said is pretty much to hard to care about), or a simple video on the menu system within the optics. I'm a comm bubba and if my Marines get tasked to use these on our next deployment i have to admit that they aren't going to have any time with the gear. A brief hip pocket class at best. Why don't we take it upon ourselves to disseminate all the information we can in all the ways we can. I will be happy when one day i see Marines in the field watching/listening to short PMEs on their IPODS and surfing the net to become more proficient as a warrior.
What i want to see is an American warrior culture, one that embraces change and is unrelenting in its path to becoming better.
Semper Fidelis,
Zach Norris
"individualism is achieved by independent action and private thinking"