A Saint from another time. One of my favorite subjects for exploration os researching how the many Native American Leaders held/maintained such inner peace while killing invaders/destroyers of their world. Listen up. the dignity of warrior is real. Real today. real tomorrow, real back then. The warriors journeyed through ceremony before battle. Away from the women and children, they would gather the night before. they would acto out the next day, and grieve for their enemies with true tears and true grief. Nobody wants to live with themselves a s a killer. Our modern warriors face the same dilmna as all warriors ever did. How can you defend your family, tribe, nation and still remain true in your deepest heart? How do your actions reflect, on the battlefield, your compassion for your enemy? My dad cried like a baby on the deck of his air-craft-carrier in WWII pacific, he'd discovered a very faint blip of an enemy submarine so far away that everyone called him crazy and he had to personally wake up the captain to get their attention. They sent out a PT boat and depth charged the area, just as a manuever... nobody expected to see the body parts and life vests and blood that rose out of the water... In those days, a military staff did not give as much attention to the grief and trauma that comes form discovering that your actions caused the deaths of 85 enemy sailors. My dad wept while the captain poured the champagne. I never saw anyone give so much to the people as my parents did. My dad was driven to make up for his actions. He never forgave himself. Though, in theory he had done the right thing, he was haunted by the reality that those enemies were also his brothers.... and tha, is exactly the way the old tribal warriors also wept on the battlefileds of their fallen vistims. The Challenge of the in a battle on honorable levels requires that he present a most painless death to his enemy. It's not about winners or losers, it's about living with yourself and bringing peace forward faster with minimal pain. What else can you do? I get really happy when the macho savagery of the psuedo warriors gets eclipsed by the deep hearts of the real military leaders. I like to repeat the stories about how U.S.Grant grieved before sending another soldier into battle. Any real military leader knows the honor of their enemy and that their challenge is to maintain a space inside themselves, so that once they return home to their families and towns, they still are fully human. these are never tears of weakness, because you gain the intelligence and victory of true peace and your eyes send it forth.... nobody except fellow soldiers need to knw what it takes to keep that depth of heart safe... and anybody who learns for that level does everything they can to prevent more war... but is never afraid to risk their life for peace.