reply to post by dooper
Nobody lives forever (although so far I've done ok at it - :lol
we used to have a saying back home that "it ain't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog". The truth of that
statement was brought home to me one day long ago in high school, when I saw two guys that had one scrawny little guy pinned down in a high school
fight. They had him pinned so well that he couldn't even move, and yet the scrawny little guy had pluck. They were beating him in the face, and with
every blow, rather than giving in or giving up, the little guy would scream "Mother......!" straight into the faces of those beating him. He
couldn't do anything else, but he did everything he could, and was not defeated. He never gave up. Shortly thereafter, a seething ball of...
something... hit those two gents square in the flank. That over-compensated in evening things up, and those two gents never had quite the same high
school life that they had enjoyed before..
That little guy eventually became my blood brother. One thing I always knew was that he could be counted on for anything, anytime, and he knew the
same about me. He went on to join the Army, and became a drill sergeant, and later quit the army and couldn't stand being a civilian, so 6 months
later he went back into the Navy, and became a SeaBee. He fought in the first gulf war ( he was sitting on the beach on an ammo crate when the Marines
came ashore), as well as in this last sandbox war. He's a civilian now, but I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, and he's doing construction right
now at Ft. Bragg, of all places. He was there when I went down a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know it until I was back home, so didn't get to
look him up while I was there, and wound up having to call him from home. But I digress.
The point is, that guy is dynamite in a small package, and has NEVER been defeated, and I suspect he never will be if he hasn't been in all these
years. We've saved each others lives on more than one occaision, and I've yet to see him back down from anything. It's a matter of attitude. He's
got it, lots of folks don't.
I'll never forget another time, also in high school, when I was "outnumbered" by one man. I was a scrawny little 120 lb kid, and he had me by twice
my own weight. A hulk of a fella. Unfortunately, I ain't got enough "reverse" in me either. He came on like a raging bull, and looked sort of like
one too, and that overconfident charge straight at scrawny little old me proved to be his undoing. The closer he got, the harder he puffed, and when
he saw I wasn't moving, I reckon he figured he'd just bowl me over and stomp me to death. Now my dear old dad hadn't left me totally defenseless in
this big bad world, I just looked like it. Dear old dad had already taught me a thing or two. When the incredible hulk got near enough, I grabbed his
collar with both hands, and fell straight back on purpose, going with the charge instead of against it. That surprised him. as I fell back, I planted
both feet firmly in his gut, and kicked hard, guiding him with my hands on his collar. I kid you not, my scrawny little butt propelled that 240 lb
hulk for 12 to 15 feet THROUGH THE AIR. He landed on his hands and knees, stiff-legged like, and rolled ass over appetite 30 feet more down a hill.
When he stopped rolling, all the fight had been removed from him. Amazing what one can do when he's not afraid to hit the ground hard enough to get
the wind knocked out of him, and not afraid of getting squashed by a larger mass. As my dear old dad used to say. "if you know they're gonna get a
full course meal out of you, you may as well get a sandwich yourself".
The moral of that story is that had I got scared, and hesitated, he'd have hurt me, bad. As it turned out, it went the other way. A further moral
that can be drawn from it is that being over-confident will get ya. Sometimes the big guy just don't know what the little guy might have.
Which brings me right back to attitude. If the "little guy" has enough attitude, you can never defeat him. Ever. He won't admit defeat, and so
cannot be defeated. He can only be killed. If he's got a bit of training to go with that, the whoopin' may go in an entirely unsuspected direction.
As Musashi said, "from one thing, know ten thousand things", be able to learn the small lessons, as they apply equally to the large situations. For
example, international relationships are nothing more than interpersonal relationships, on a grand scale.
Your philosophy expounded above sound eerily similar to a Ninja philosophy which says that a man who is empty, and has no possibility of victory, or
even survival, can and will do thing that are unheard of. Only then is his victory sure, paradoxically. The enemy has no hook to snag him with, and
thus cannot control him. There's nothing to hold over his head. Sun Tzu says the same thing, and as you and I both know, that's God's own truth,
from Gideon through Thermopylae, through Chosin right up to now.
Some things never change.
Some men will never be defeated, even unto death.