# Battle Hardened ### Background - I drafted this note sometime in 2021 while I was doing the walking up US-281 ### Notes - Recently I was listening to music and a song came on titled "Battle Hardened". I must confess, that although I like most of the artist's music, I didn't enjoy this particular song. - However, the song title got me thinking about what it means to "Be Ready". I am sure there are lots of ways to think about being ready, but the focus of this post is about being "Battle Hardened". - As we were preparing for DESERT STORM, we had lots of people give us briefings about what combat was like. Additionally, our training was very realistic; even to the point that I had to remind myself before each combat flight that we were dropping real bombs on real people and they were shooting real bullets back at us. - All the above notwithstanding, none of the pep-talks or training was like the REAL THING! - Years ago, I came across a snipit from a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt on 1910.04.23 that still gets to me even today when I wrote this post. - "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - God even "arranged" things so the Israelites could "Be Ready!" - These are the nations that the LORD left to test all the Israelites who had not known any of the wars in Canaan, if only to teach warfare to the subsequent generations of Israel, especially to those who had not known it formerly: the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath. {Judges 3.1-3 (BSB)} - Get off the couch, get off the pew, get off the pot and into the BATTLE! - I recently saw this sentence in a travel blog: - "Keeping up with their adventures can help you live vicariously through them ..." Stop living vicariously! Get in the battle! Get combat EXPERIENCE! Contact me if you don't know what I mean by "get in the battle" or "get combat experience" or "Be Ready". I'd love to help you! ---