To understand the circumstances leading to this debate, it is necessary to go back to the military of the 1960s and 1970s.  For those who did not serve during the 1960s and the 1970s, it is hard to describe just how bad things had become, not just in the Army, but in all the services.  Here are just a few examples.  The first Sergeant-Major of the Army (a position created in the 1960s) turned out to be a first class crook running a kick-back scheme involving enlisted clubs all over the world.  Secretary of Defense McNamara forced “Project 100,000” on the Army in which 100,000 individuals who did not meet the minimum requirements for being drafted into the Army would be allowed to join the Army.  While Army generals were telling busy telling Congress how successful “Project 100,000” was, I never met a single company or field grade officer that had anything good to say about the program.  It was a discipline nightmare.  Drug use in all the services was rampant with the Navy going through a particularly embarrassing investigation into drug use on-board its ships.  Discipline in all the services after Vietnam suffered and morale in many units was almost non-existent.  I knew an E-7 with 17 years whose morale was so low that he refused to re-enlist one last time to get his 20 years.  There was a standing joke among the enlisted everywhere I served that we were looking for the “real Army.”  Certainly, the real Army could not be like the units in which we had served.  After 7 years I finally called it quits.  I was tired of working for “ticket punching” officers and senior NCOs for whom I had little or no respect.

Were there good people in the military?  Of course, but they were fighting against a system that seemed to be on bureaucratic auto-pilot.  There was a recruitment angle in all this.  After 1975 almost all the services (the Marines, as always, were the exception) seemed to pitch the military as anything but a warfighting organization.  Join the Navy, Army, Air Force to get an education, for the bonus, get a start in a future career in the civilian world, etc.  About the only time you ran across anything hinting at warfare was in the barracks humor of the day.  “Join the Army, travel to interesting places, meeting interesting people, kill them.”  It was in this atmosphere that the debate over the terms “warrior” and “soldier” took place.  It had nothing whatsoever to do with “tribal warrior culture” or ancient Celts versus the Romans.  It was about getting the word “war” back into the professional culture of the US Armed Forces.

During my time in the Army I can remember very few officers or NCOs that really inspired me about the military.  One of the exceptional individuals was a warrant officer that was assigned to the military intelligence in which I served in Vietnam near Bien Hoa.  It was rumored that he was on his 5th or 6th tour in Vietnam.  Anyway, it was February 1972 and we expecting the Tet Offensive of 1972.  (It turned out to be the Easter Offensive of 1972, which is an interesting story in itself that would be relevant here, but is too long to tell.)  So this warrant officer, whose name I can no longer recall, called all the junior enlisted together.  After giving us a talk about the reality of the girls some of the guys were “dating,” Warrant Officer X proceeded to describe to us the reality of close quarter combat, as he had served in that same unit in that same location during the Tet Offensive of 1968.  He ended his talk with a little speech.  “Let me tell you what your job in the Army is.  Your job is NOT to brag about how many drawer feet of classified material you are in charge of, NOT to brag about the clearances you have that others don’t have, NOT to brag about how many generals you have briefed.  Your job is to help the private on point fight, win and survive the battle.  The supply sergeant’s job is to help the private on point fight, win and survive the battle.  The PFC handing out ping pong paddles at special services, his job is to help the private on point fight, win and survive the battle.  In fact, everybody’s job in the Army from the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army down to the private’s platoon sergeant and platoon leader is to help the private on point fight, win and survive the battle.  DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT.”  I never have forgotten that.  More than a decade later when I was in charge of training many of the new analysts coming into DIA, I would give them the same speech changing only that the private on point includes that pilot flying into harm’s way, the naval craft sailing into harm’s way and the Marine on point.  I would then carefully observe the students’ reactions.  Sadly, the normal reaction was a puzzled look that seemed to express, “What kind of fanatic is he?” 

The “warrior” versus “soldier” debate was in its essence a recognition that the spirit of that warrant officer in Vietnam needed to be re-instilled somehow into the professional culture of the Army, in particular, but also all the other services.  That was what was meant by the “warrior spirit.”  It was not some allusion to “warriorism” in tribal cultures long dead and gone.  It was a response to a very real crisis in which the Army and other services had taken a very wrong track and needed to get back on the right track. 

Is this debate still relevant today?  One would think that with the US Armed Forces committed to fighting on two fronts against some of the nastiest and most dangerous enemies that US has ever faced would be enough to inspire the “warrior spirit.”  Sadly, I think that it is not so.  Certainly, as late as the 1990s after the first Gulf War, I continued to see the same bureaucratic mind-sets that I had seen before.  Here are just two examples among many that I could give.  I watched a flag rank officer serving in intelligence at a social event telling junior officers (meaning lower than flag rank) of his service that the importance of his position in the military intelligence community was “to protect the interests” of his service.  Not to protect the interests of the USA, not to tell the truth regardless of consequences, not to protect servicemen and women in harm’s way.  TO PROTECT THE INTERESTS OF HIS SERVICE.  I was disgusted.  He was promoted.  In another case I had written a report where I had quite justifiably criticized an office.  A Special Forces officer asked to read my report.  He had once been my boss and I let me have a copy.  As I was leaving work one day, we met while walking to the parking lot.  I asked him whether he had read the report.  He said yes, then proceeded to ask whether I expected to get another assignment like that.  I asked what he meant.  He said, “After writing a report like that, you’ll never be given another assignment like that.”  In other words, I had rocked the boat, and a SPECIAL FORCES officer of all people was telling me that I shouldn’t rock the boat.  In a 33 year career I could go on with example after example, but you get the point.  As when I left the Army, I retired because I could no longer stand the bureaucracy.  I loved my job, when I was permitted to do it, but I hated the constant battle with the bureaucracy.

So what about the culture of the Army and the Armed Forces today?  Personally, I am certain that the Armed Forces of the United States of America are the most professional military organization the world has ever seen.  Certainly, the response of the Armed Forces to the needs of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen in the field is better now than at any other time in the storied history of these Armed Forces.  Yet, the insidious nature of bureaucratic thinking, politics, and petty personal issues is now and always will be a threat to the true professionalism the Armed Forces requires.  Everyone in every service everywhere everyday needs to be constantly reminded that the essence of his or her job is ultimately to close with the enemy and destroy his will to resist by whatever force is required.  That is the reality of warfare.  That is why the military exists.  I have no problem whatsoever with the term “warrior-soldier.”

But this mantra that only "warriors" fight and that one would be insulted to be called a "Soldier" shows that this is a problem already.