AMERICAN RONIN: THE WAY OF WALKING ALONE: A Commentary on Miyamoto Musashi’s DOKKODO

  AMERICAN RONIN:

  THE WAY OF WALKING ALONE

  A COMMENTARY ON MIYAMOTO MUSASHI’S DOKKODO

  BY

  JOSEPH HALL

  FOREWORD BY

  SCOTT CUNNINGHAM

  Man, if someone has to tell you that martial arts and weight training can be dangerous then I don’t think telling you here does any good either. But the lawyers say we have to so:

  Martial arts training, whether armed or unarmed, can be dangerous and no one associated with this work accepts any responsibility for any injury that may result from your involvement in any activity. Always seek a doctor’s opinion before beginning any program of training.

  Copyright 2019 by Joseph Hall

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by law for the purposes of review or short excerpts properly attributed.

  Library of Congress cataloguing in process.

  ISBN:

  For Amanda

  PREFACE AND APOLOGY:

  When I wrote this slender volume, it was my hope and intention that it might possess value for every man and not just for veterans of the recent wars. My own experience has been shaped largely by my time and training as an infantryman and then a medic in the US Army, a police officer, a Border Patrol Agent and a Federal Air Marshal and, as a natural result, perhaps, it too often sounds as if I would dismiss the experience, training, and virtue of men who have never lifted a sword or a handgun in service to the state.

  Now, I beg your indulgence, I beg your understanding, I beg, even, your forgiveness if this seems the case.

  If you are a man who values prowess and honor and The Good and have ever closed your fist in training or in battle, or even considered that one day your life might end defending what you hold more dear, then I wrote this commentary for you.

  FOREWORD

  All men may be created equal, but they are not all created the same. Prepare to take a look into the mindset of a man who walks the warrior path. For those who walk a similar path, these words will be familiar. For those unaccustomed to this mindset, what you are about to read may be unsettling. Clear your mind. Prepare to have your beliefs, perceptions, and opinions challenged. Not all that you will read will be agreeable or comforting. That’s not the intent. Reading should not be about finding happy conformity, rather about shining a light into the shadows of our minds to illuminate things we have never confronted. The purpose of these words is not to bring comfort. Instead, they are meant to illuminate. To cast a light onto ideas and thoughts that you yourself may never have come to on your own.

  Hopefully this work will allow for a better understanding of those who walk the Warrior’s Path. Unlike the Vietnam vets who were rejected, the modern veterans are respected by society. That does not mean that they are understood. The warrior code is foreign to most civilians, and even when explained, it is seen as foreign and frightening.

  Our perceptions are shaped by our experiences. Joe Hall has probably experienced life far differently than you. To find that his perception differs from yours should be no surprise. I have known Joe for two decades. In this times have found that the heart of a warrior beats in his chest. He lives his life through dedication, training, and discipline. He sees the world as he does without apology or excuse. Challenge his views. He expects no less, since this is the path he has chosen. But, when you do, challenge him with logic and reason, not emotion or instinct.

  Many who live in Western societies go through life experiencing the world as they wish it to be, rather than how it is. This is possible because they are guarded by men of action who not only accept the world the way it is, but thrive in the challenge. The notion that humans are not predisposed to violence is unsupported by fact. Humans will attempt as much violence as they see necessary in order to achieve their selfish goals. The only reliable guard against this is not slogans, or social pressure, but the threat of violent consequence. While you may find this warrior ethos and outlook harsh, drastic, and coldly pragmatic, it is actually a historical norm…warriors are necessary for the survival of nations, societies, and cultures. Be thankful that there are men prepared to use violence on our behalf.

  Now, prepare for a look into the way one of these men looks at the world around him.

  Scott Cunningham

  Summer 2018

  (NOTE: Scott Cunningham was my Squadron Commanding Officer for years, including our deployment to Afghanistan when he was also the Coalition Forces Commander for Laghman Province. He is one of the last classically trained warriors on the government payroll and one of the few men I’ve met who is obviously smarter than I am. It’s a cliché to say I’d follow him to hell, but I kept all my fire retardant uniforms just in case. I rode with the Wildhorse. I rode with Scott Cunningham. -The Author)

  THE DOKKODO

  PRECEPT ONE: Accept things exactly as they are.

  PRECEPT TWO: Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

  PRECEPT THREE: Do not ever rely on a partial feeling.

  PRECEPT FOUR: Think lightly of yourself but seriously of the world.

  PRECEPT FIVE: Avoid attachment to desire for as long as you live.

  PRECEPT SIX: Do not regret anything that you have done.

  PRECEPT SEVEN: Never be envious.

  PRECEPT EIGHT: Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

  PRECEPT NINE: Resentment and complaining are not appropriate for the warrior or for anyone else.

  PRECEPT TEN: Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.

  PRECEPT ELEVEN: In all things, have no preferences.

  PRECEPT TWELVE: Be indifferent to where you live.

  PRECEPT THIRTEEN: Do not pursue the taste of good food.

  PRECEPT FOURTEEN: Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.

  PRECEPT FIFTEEN: Do not act following customary beliefs.

  PRECEPT SIXTEEN: Do not collect weapons or train with weapons beyond what is useful.

  PRECEPT SEVENTEEN: Do not fear Death.

  PRECEPT EIGHTEEN: Do not seek to either goods or fiefs for your old age.

  PRECEPT NINETEEN: Respect Buddha and the Gods without counting on their help.

  PRECEPT TWENTY: You may abandon your own body, but you must preserve your honor.

  PRECEPT TWENTY-ONE: Never stray from the Way.

  INTRODUCTION

  “Man is bred for war…”

  Frederick Nietzsche

  For the last million or so years, our ancestors, both human and not-yet-human have been breeding under some very difficult conditions that required strength, speed, endurance, cunning and prowess. For the entirety of human existence, the ability to provide for ourselves and defend what is ours by force has been the most essential part of being alive[1].

  You are the end product of generations of breeding designed to produce warriors. An engine fueled by passion selected for those traits that would make you strong and free. That engine was driven by a love of beauty and the desire to have families safe from tigers and disease and the warriors of other tribes.

  Any virtue a man is capable of depends first on his prowess. It does not matter how loving a father you are, how talented a musician, how deep a thinker if you do not have a spear and the skill and strength to wield it when the adversary comes to make you a slave and make your woman his own.

  You were bred to be good. You were bred to appreciate beauty and to foster it, to care for it; to
love and laugh and be an instrument of joy to your tribe and your family. You were bred to enjoy the taste of a lover’s kiss and the laughter of children.

  But first you were bred to stand and fight and be a shield between those things and any adversary that might harm them.

  You were bred for war.

  There existed in Medieval Japan a warrior type known as the “ronin.” A ronin was a member of his society’s warrior caste, trained for war and expected to make his livelihood through his prowess, who somehow found himself outside the accepted military structures of his day.

  I can think of no more fitting term for the veterans of the 21st century’s War on Terror and for those men and women who study the martial arts seriously, aware that the life-giving sword is still a sword.

  I am not going to downplay my opinion that every man is bred for war in a way that women are not. Nor am I going to downplay my complete approval of those women who now wear the blue cord of a US Army Infantryman and a Ranger tab in some instances. When women choose the Way of the Warrior they set themselves to overcome obstacles men do not encounter and that makes their success, therefore, in some ways even more glorious.

  For the most part, veterans of previous wars found ways to leave their experiences behind them. Veterans of the Second World War came home from Europe and Asia and thought of their war as something they did. It left an impression, but, for the most part, it did not define them as they returned to civilian life to again become farmers and engineers. In no small part, this was because their war had involved the entire society for which they fought.

  The Campaign in Korea quickly became known as The Forgotten War as it was wedged between the Great Crusade of World War Two and the debacle of Vietnam. These veterans, too, saw their war as something they did, but were the first American soldiers to be perceived as having not quite achieved victory and, despite their personal sacrifices and heroism, they returned to their civilian lives conscious that the civilian world had moved on without them.

  Vietnam brought us a generation of veterans who were largely rejected by the civilian society they left behind. They were young men and their peers who had stayed home largely felt the war was not just imperfect but morally wrong and that the veteran accrued some guilt by his participation whether he was a volunteer or a draftee. Instead of being something he did, the Vietnam veteran experienced his war as something that happened to him, especially those men who were drafted and sought every chance of avoiding the war.

  Rather than being assimilated back into the society he had served, the veteran found he must first reject the wars and its horrors and his own experience of suffering and heroism. (I don’t mean to make this generalization sound universal. I’ve met more than a few veterans from the Vietnam War who, at 70 years old, still carry a certain amount of the bad-ass aura that a warfighter earns. And men in their 90’s who remind you still of why the Nazi’s never had a chance.)

  This was the story every young man[2] who enlisted in the all-volunteer force that went to Iraq and Afghanistan was familiar with. We had seen the movies, THE DEER HUNTER, FIRST BLOOD, FULL METAL JACKET and BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. We had been led to accept that war made men savages and broke their souls and such men were inevitably villains or merely pathetic.

  The very act of enlisting into the military between 1975 and 2000 required a young man to first reject the civilian world he expected to reject him for his enlistment.

  After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the civilian world divided itself into three factions based on how one saw the coming wars. One faction was eager to support the young soldier going forth to make the world safe and mete out justice to the adversary. Another faction rose up to protest, to again claim war was always wrong and that the warrior was always a psychotic murderer. A third faction tried to straddle the fence and “support the troops” but not support the war.

  The soldiers I served with and have spoken to since had a nearly universal contempt for the last two factions. “Fuck those guys.” And, rather than seek the approval of their peers who did not go forth into war, the soldier and the veteran mocked them. While previously veterans had accepted the idea their society rejected them and their peers held them in contempt as murderers, these veterans came to despise civilians as cowards and, unlike the previous generation of war veterans, it was never safe to spit on or mock them. They did not seek assimilation back into that faction of society that rejected them, they were willing to punch anyone who challenged their honor “right in the fucking throat.”

  Our Wars were neither “something we did” nor “something that happened to us” for the most part. Our wars became part of our identity and we remained warriors even upon our discharge.

  I’m no expert on PTSD from the inside or out. In 2010, I underwent a court ordered psychiatric evaluation that established I had neither PTSD nor anger issues. While I still mourn the dead (some of whom died despite my best efforts to keep them alive), to do so is only natural and not a symptom of some “disorder.” Achilles cried his eyes out when his cousin was killed by Hector.

  I know PTSD is real. My grandmother’s brother fought in Europe and, as a fascinated child who wanted to ask questions, I was cautioned not to mention it. He had “seen some things” and never discussed the War. He was a successful family man and his reluctance to speak of the war never manifested in any harmful way as far as I know.

  But my first personal experience with the VA was an official talking to my squadron when we got home from Iraq telling us we could get a 30% disability rating simply for having a CMB, CIB or CAB[3]. It was, again, assumed that I was broken by my war.

  Since then, I have met a navy veteran who has a 70% disability rafting for her PTSD which, while she never went to Iraq or A-Stan, was a result of seeing body bags transferred to metal caskets in Qatar, and a veteran of my own squadron who tried to coach me on what lies to tell to get a disability check, and far too many clerks and IT guys who have PTSD because they witnessed mortar fire even though they never went outside the wire. Its my understanding, though I can’t cite a source, that warfighters suffer PTSD at lower rates than those who stayed inside the wire.

  In 1985 when I went to basic combat training, I was taught by my drill sergeants, some of whom were veterans of Vietnam, that I would one day die in the Fulda Gap or Nicaragua, but only after doing and seeing terrible things. I think that this aspect of my training inoculated me against PTSD to an extent. Knowing that war was horror and glory prepared me to face that unknown better than those young people who enlisted only after being assured that they’d never see combat and they’d be in a cozy air conditioned office in Baghdad or Kabul.

  The ugly truth is that there is a romance around PTSD. Again, we all know that ass clown who picks up girls by acting depressed and playing it off as what he saw during the war. There are some hippie chicks who LOVE that shit. And we all love hippie chicks.

  This flippant attitude toward actual PTSD and the sickening glorification of “the 22 veterans who will commit suicide today” or the whining of that veteran who can’t be around fireworks because it reminds him of artillery fire (which he never experienced from the receiving end) are the product, I think, of our society’s devotion to weakness and vulnerability. The only way they can accept a display of that strength and prowess demonstrated by a 19 year old infantryman is to insist that he is somehow broken and even more vulnerable than they are.

  And too many of my fellow veterans play along. I’m sure tyrants across the globe are glad to read on facebook that American soldiers are afraid of loud noises and our mothers all sleep more secure knowing their defenders can’t distinguish between incoming fire and sparklers for emotional reasons.

  I’ve had veterans act shocked when they learn I’m also a combat vet (“Have you ever killed anyone?” “A few that I know of…and a few more probably that I wasn’t the only guy shooting at”) but have no remorse for the killing I’ve done. That I can sit calmly and say “Everyone I ever
killed needed to be dead” seems shocking to civilians and even to some veterans and definitely to inexperienced social workers new to the VA.

  I’m tired of hearing the old aphorisms that those who did shit don’t talk and those who talk didn’t do shit. That might have been true in Vietnam but it seems every SEAL writes a book these days. I’m also tired of hearing that my assertion that war is glorious and it is no wonder men love it somehow demonstrates that I do not understand what war is. Especially when these protests come from men who paid ten bucks to see AMERICAN SNIPER (after shelling out $25 for the hardcover book) and SEAL TEAM has been renewed for a second season.

  Anyway, once outside the accepted military system, we returned to combat as contractors, or started t-shirt companies (Article 15, Ranger UP, Grunt Style), coffee companies (Black Rifle Coffee Company), or forged a place in the fitness industry based on our military training. We continued to train in martial arts and with firearms, making videos for YouTube.

  At least one veteran, Tim Kennedy, made a career as a Mixed Martial Artist, continuing to earn his livelihood with his understanding of violence. Many more of us, probably because we are not quite of Tim Kennedy’s caliber, continue to sport fight and train simply because it is who we are.

  There is even a TV network (VET TV) devoted to us and the understanding that our sense of humor is definitely not mainstream.

  We are no longer soldiers, but we are still the most dangerous men in the room and we are still warriors.

  Like the ronin, we are warriors without a place. Like the ronin, “our” society is uncertain what to make of us. The society we left behind still paints us as victims of our wars and laments the degree to which we suffer from PTSD while we laugh and talk about “that one time in Laghman Province…or Fallujah…”