Sorry for the long read, but I felt this email I received today was just too good not to share.
********************
ON
SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEP DOGS
By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D., author of “On Killing.”
Honor
never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so
because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy
things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our
time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship,
persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains:
What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living
for?
—
William J. Bennett in a lecture to the US Naval Academy November 24,
1997
One Vietnam
veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:
“Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle,
productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.” This
is true.
Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the
aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is
that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one
another.
Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent
crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time
record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million
Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime
is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year.
Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat
offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less
than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation:
We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is
still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent
people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or
under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the
pretty, blue robin’s egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it
will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without
its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are
like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow
into something wonderful.
For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
“Then there are the wolves,” the old war veteran said, “and the wolves
feed on the sheep without mercy.” Do you believe there are wolves out
there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it.
There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds.
The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep.
There is no safety in denial.
“Then there are sheep dogs,” he went on, “and I’m a sheepdog. I live to
protect the flock and confront the wolf.”
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive
citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy
for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive
sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a
deep love for your fellow citizens?
What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking
the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into
the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.
Let me expand on this old soldier’s excellent model of the sheep,
wolves, and sheep dogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is
what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil
in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is
why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire
exits throughout their kids’ schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police
officer in their kid’s school. Our children are thousands of times more
likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire,
but the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial.
The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too
hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the
wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference,
though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm
the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little
lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way,
at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that
there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell
them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready
in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would
much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself
white, and go, “Baa.”
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to
hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High
School were big, tough high school
students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the
time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had
nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and
SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to
physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how
the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.
Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded
hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever
before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and
military personnel?
Remember how many times you heard the word hero?
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a
sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a
sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the
perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the
night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheep
dogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheep dogs are a little
older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed
right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep
pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day.
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is,
most citizens in America
said, “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheep dogs, the
warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those
planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” When you are truly
transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into
warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a
difference.
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but
he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able
to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the
population.
There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted
of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory
crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement
officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted
victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of
awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd
that is least able to protect itself.
Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically
primed to be wolves or sheep dogs. But I believe that most people can
choose which one they want to be, and I’m proud to say that more and
more Americans are choosing to become sheep dogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was
honored in his hometown of Cranbury,
New Jersey. Todd, as you
recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell
phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking.
When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used
as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, “Let’s roll,”
which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to
confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation
occurred among the passengers – athletes, business people and parents.
— from sheep to sheep dogs and together they fought the wolves,
ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil
of evil men. — Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of
police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep,
real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheep dogs are born that way, and so are
wolves. They didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a
human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious,
moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay,
but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and
your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to
protect you.
If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheep dogs are going
to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love.
But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you
must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip
and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the
wolf comes knocking at the door.
For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are
well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt
holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some
form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police
officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there
is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears
to massacre you and your loved ones.
I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one
officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other
cop replied, “I will never be caught without my gun in church.” I asked
why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew
who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that
incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and
opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer
believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been
carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw
himself on the boy’s body and wait to die.
That cop looked me in the eye and said, “Do you have any idea how hard
it would be to live with yourself after that?”
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer
was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would
probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and
would call for “heads to roll” if they found out that the airbags in
their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire
sprinklers in their kids’ school did not work. They can accept the fact
that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be
safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often
their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog
quietly asks himself, “Do you have and idea how hard it would be to
live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had
to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?”
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically
destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is
counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and
horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when
you are not physically prepared: you didn’t bring your gun, you didn’t
train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy.
Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically
survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness
and horror at your moment of truth.
Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11
book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to
terms with our current world situation: “…denial can be seductive,
but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers
think they get by saying it isn’t so, the fall they take when faced
with new violence is all the more unsettling.”
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in
small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on
some level.
And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his
life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes.
If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you
step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending
that the bad man will not come today. No one can be “on” 24/7, for a
lifetime.
Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon,
and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this
to yourself…
“Baa.”
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no
dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a
matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject,
head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior.
Few people exist completely on one end or the other.
Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America
took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few
steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the
warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which
you move up that continuum, away from sheep hood and denial, is the
degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and
psychologically at your moment of truth.
War is
an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded
state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth
war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to
fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is
a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made so and
kept so by the exertions of men better than himself. — John Stuart Mill
