CyberWarrior


"Sergeant! You will do as I have ordered!" An arrogant fresh lieutenant annoyingly fingers his graduation ring from Annapolis. "You and the men WILL proceed down this trail. NOW mister." A hot steamy jungle of death seems to fall silent at his command, a silence of impending death.

"No Sir, I will not order my men to commit suicide. This trail is laced with Cong booby traps. We will spread out on opposite sides of the trail with staggered cross fire positions and then proceed," a seasoned sergeant quietly replies guarding against the ears of a jungle which like to silence a voice of command with a terrifying report of a Russian made AK-47. A green lieutenant tenses at the sounds of M16 safeties clicking off among the sergeant's boys. It is common for officers to be shot by their own men. Hoping the sergeant is bluffing, to show no fear the lieutenant begins to slowly walk down the trail, turning he says, "You men are a bunch of...."

Most of the boys are knocked flat or sent reeling by the impact of the blast. Only the tired grizzled sergeant remains standing, his hands lightly gripping his M-16 fearful of an expected fire fight with the explosion. Adding to the stench and filth of his camouflaged fatigues, blood, meat, tiny pieces of the lieutenant. "All right men be alert where you step. Lets spread out, staggered cross fire positions. Let's rock and roll, we owe the lieutenant one."

Blind obedience does not make a warrior no more than it makes a person. Being obedient to the mind makes a person a societal warrior. Surviving this jungle we call life, requires a mind set of a warrior.

Knight, Samurai, Partisan, Condottiere, all have a common quality, an ability to think on the run. Grace under fire. Regardless if it is in the hot sweltering stench of a Vietnam jungle or your son's bedroom stinking of pot. Obedience to logic, reason and common sense will always win a battle and hopefully the war as well. People who remain cool, calm and collected, even in the heat of anger or chill of fear, are truly dangerous and are to be treated with respect. They are dangerous in the sense they are using cognitive abilities as a weapon, not emotional hysteria. Mindgame Warriors. Fear them. Respect them. Learn from them. Be a successful survivor through thought.

Intellectual warriors, the guerrilla's of thought, mental magicians, all abide by an unwritten code of honor. Sir Lancelot followed it, so did our fictional Luke Skywalker. King Arthur, Joan of Arc and the greatest warrior of history, Jesus Christ, all knew the code of honor, not only by heart, but by soul, spirit and mind as well. It is a code dictating honor, dignity, pride and trust. A lifestyle of constant self improvement, acquiring knowledge and honoring those qualities. Dignity in all thoughts, emotions and actions. It is a code requiring real pride in your personal life and leading a life of unquestionable quality and distinction. Trust is one of the most difficult to acquire for a neo-warrior. Trust in yourself is a tentative emotion. For others to place trust in you is even more tentative, a very dynamic creature. True trust is a war a warrior will fight for infinity. Trust is a war of questioning yourself. Trust is awareness of knowing you are not infallible.

Atila, Alexander and Adolf were warriors. Fierce, feared and frightening warriors. They came close to conquering the world as it existed for each. All three, and others in both unwritten and written history, possessed the power, the tools, along with the technology and the skills to use them to defeat those who stood in their way. All were clever, crafty and insanely cruel. Warriors of their own right. Nevertheless, not true warriors. In time their disbelief in the unwritten code of honor conquered them. Their nemesis, residing within their minds, defeated them. Ego is the name of a nemesis they, all of us, carry within our minds. Ego is a destroyer of warriors. This thing, Ego, this monster, is chained, is shackled and is confined in a dark closet of security in the mind of a true warrior. Ego, when set free, immediately wins by using its legions of troops; anger, revenge, lust, power, fame and glory.

In our world, as it exists for us today, the tools, the technology, the skills and ego are all quite readily available. Doing battle with bludgeons, bullets and bombs is basically passé. Ours is a high tech world.

Today we conquer and enslave with the connection of a modem, the push of a virtual button, the loading of a program. We wage wars of finances, of technology, of super information and still, even today, of egotistical power. War will never truly end. Humankind will always be waging a war over the unwritten code of honor. Some believe in the code, others do not.

In our tiny little piece of the online world, Atilla is here going by the name Hacker. Alexander is also present, Phreaker to some. Of course we are not free of that egomaniac, the power procurer, the pimp of push buttons, Hitler. He has returned from his bunker and has many of us living in a virtual Hell. Today he is called a Crasher.

Our unwritten code of honor is a formidable force. It has survived thousands of years, perhaps millions of years. Hundreds of millions have, throughout history, believed in it, defended it and died for it. Unwritten and all too often unspoken, this honor commands millions of troops today. I am one of those troopers. I am not blindly obedient. I am not a true warrior just yet. In fighting this war, in defending honor, in choosing mind over fists, it is my utmost and ultimate desire to rise to the time honored distinction of being labeled, True Warrior.

After an hour of careful calculated movement, the sergeant and his boys have made their way about five hundred yards or more, deeper into a Jungle of Death. Their sergeant, mindful of how fear fatigues a man quickly, calls for a break in terror of motion. "Pass the word along. Fifteen minute break. Johnson see to it a perimeter defense of two man teams are set up on our flanks and rear. No smoking and cover your shit. Charlie can smell us a mile away."

"Sergeant Sir," a fresh green draftee stolen away from his family and very unsure, "Sir, you saved our lives back there. Thank you Sir." His sergeant slings his M16 but leaves it selected to full auto, "Sit down son. No. Sit here under this bush and drape some of the branches over your shoulders." He is constantly thinking survival. "Private don't ever salute me again out here in the bush. Act like I am just another soldier with no rank. You will get me killed if you keep that up." His sergeant is firm but with a hint of kindness in his voice. "Sir, I am... I am sorry.." Dropping the respect for rank as suggested.

"Listen kid, unless you want to go home in a box, you best start learning from the others. Pay attention to everything they do, every single little detail. Think son, constantly think. Plan every single step you take here in 'Nam," assuming the warrior mentor role, "Now look, I didn't save your lives back there. All I did was to think. I planned my steps and your steps. It is simply logical that trail would be laced with sudden death. I didn't save your lives, I just stopped blind obedience from killing you."

"Sarge, the lieutenant could have court martialed you.. all of us for not following orders." He is very confused by the sudden change of command protocol in the jungle. Thinking, planning, the sergeant silently drops out his ammo clip, glances at it to be sure it has a full forty rounds and quietly slides it back into his weapon. He carefully pulls the charging rod a bit and looks to be sure there is a round in the chamber. "Son that never would have happened. If a Viet Cong booby trap didn't kill him, the other boys would have. Now quietly go spread the word. Form up and head back the same way we just came. Retrace every step we took getting here. Let's get the fuck out of here."