Customer Reviews

The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Gray served in the intelligence service in the American army in Italy in WWII, after receiving his doctorate from Columbia. He saw many things he despised, yet was surprised to note that war also had its delights. On reflection, he realized that was logical. Without positives why would we war? This book details the seductive elements of war, explaining some of the feelings many of us have in viewing and studying combat of all sorts. Without understanding those feelings, we are more likely to dismiss them as only shameful and deceptive. Understanding them will help us, Gray hoped, to avoid the terrible cost of seeking them by warring again. This is probably the best book on why we war and the surprising things war teaches us about ourselves ever written. And its style is neither pedantic nor abstract but engaging and enriched by memorable stories and wisdom.

I haven't read this book for twenty years but it still sparkles in my memory. It is one of the two or three best books on war. Grey has a marvelous writing style, a penchant for thought-provoking observation, and the discipline that allows a philosopher to see, but not pre-judge. You will be challenged by his fairness, surprised by the things he saw (that few others have described), and stimulated to think again about one of the most important of recurring human events: War. Excellent, engaging, intelligent.

To begin praises of this book is hard, because as a man who has never been in combat, I hesitate to speak on matters so foreign to my experience.

But J. Glenn Gary leaves me stunned and humbled. The amount of pure excellent reflection in this book was utterly wonderful, and I left with a real sense of understanding nothing else has accomplished. It is clear Gary has created a book that is more complete a discussion of battle as any man alive.

Rarely is a book worthy of cult status. This one is.

One of the reviewers stated it was one of the worse war books. That's not surprising, because this is not a 'war book.' You will not read of battles, etc. Instead, you will read an excellant account of the mind and emotional spirit of the fighting man. This is not an easy read, but is well worth your effort to read it. Never before has an author described the conflicts of mind and conscience (or lack of) of the warrior, the combat veteran. I gave 4 stars only because J. Glenn Gray writes in a manner that surpasses my reading ability. This is a great book.

Gray's book gives us a chance for a better understanding of what men face in the battle with themselves while in war. A very different view as oppposed to movies and text book history, where all the American soldiers were hero's with little or no fear. Gray does an outstanding job of making someone who has never been in the hell of war, understand why soldiers act the ways they do. An excellent read for any war student or historian.

It is all too easy to understand why a book this good is ignored today; post-modernists cannot even agree that there is such a thing as an objective world, let alone establish that it is inhabited by human beings or justify claims that they engage in a violent practice known as warfare. What is less easily fathomed is the fact that the book has never really garnered much attention, something that Hannah Arendt comments on in her rather disappointing introduction to this fine book.

Gray's "Warriors" is that rare combination of lucid intellectualism and poignancy that ought to be an immediate success with readers, yet the book remains obscure (indeed, I had to order it since my local seller didn't stock it). Ironically, it addresses many topics that should be of interest to contemporary scholars: trauma and what we now call PTSD, memory and forgetfulness, objectification, guilt.... Gray also ruminates on what he calls the appeal of battle. At various points I was reminded of the psychological insights of Robert Jay Lifton, whose The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide introduced the idea of "Doubling" (as Lifton calls it). And there is plenty of evidence for Lifton's psychological theory in this book, though Gray doesn't refer to it as such.

What makes Gray's book so impressive is his ability to remain critically aloof and emotionally close to his topic at the same time--a very tricky proposition that he pulls off marvelously. He very smoothly juxtaposes passages from Plato and Shakespeare to those from his own personal letters or war journal, the latter of which is moving without ever being maudlin or depressing.

If Gray's last chapter, "The Future of War," seems dated and hopelessly optimistic, I think we can forgive him. Gray, like the existentialists who were his contemporaries, cites Nietzsche here, but unlike them, he suggests that one day we may have the superhuman strength to "break our swords" once and for all. Sadly, as our present world stage confirms, ubermenschen we still are not.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Ethics. J. Glenn Gray is a philosopher who observed and wrote about how the feeling of friendship was the motivation that caused soldiers in most instances to act courageously. Gray had the ironic experience of receiving his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University the same day he received his draft notice in the mail. He spent over four years serving in combat and occupation duties in Europe during World War II in the Army as an intelligence officer. During this time, he kept a journal of his experiences and several years later, he edited and published his journal The Warriors, which is a compelling examination of the myriad experiences of ordinary soldiers in warfare, filtered through the keen eye of a philosopher. Gray analyzed the historical reasons that cause men to fight battles and what motivates them to willingly put their lives in harms way. Men first go to war for the defense of their country, political ideology, or religious convictions. However, Gray observed, "When through military reverses or the fatiguing and often horrible experiences of combat, the original purpose becomes obscured, the fighter is often sustained solely by the determination not to let down his comrades." Soldiers' fighting as a team in the "crucible of fire" is what ultimately binds them together as a "Band of Brothers" and causes them to forge friendships that in many ways become stronger than their natural family ties. This is the same lesson Aristotle taught two thousand years earlier in his "Nicomachean Ethics"!

I recommend this work to anyone interested in philosophy, and ethics.

Glenn Gray's The Warriors is not an easy read. The analytical writing style will not appeal to readers that are looking for exciting anecdotes of battle from WWII. What we have instead is a look at the range of attitudes different soldiers have toward battle, love, death, the enemy and guilt. What some readers might derisively describe as "moral equivalency" on Gray's part, is really objectivity, born perhaps of his academic experience in garnering a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University.

What gives this book its real value is that Gray's academic thoroughness is combined with a keenness of insight into human nature. He deftly catalogues the gamut of psychological and emotional conditions that are manifested in the behavior of men in combat. One of his major conclusions, that men fight, not for their country or lofty ideals, but for their "comrades" in arms, should come as no surprise to anyone well read in infantry memoirs from WWII. I place quotes around the word "comrades" because Gray assigns to that word a very specific meaning.

As for drawbacks: There is no index, footnotes or bibliography. Also, the last section on "The Future of War" could have been omitted since it seems too optimistic and utopian in tone compared to the grim realism of the earlier chapters.

The Warriors is an important book for anyone wanting to look beyond the cheerleading of the "Good War" or "Greatest Generation" and see what really animated the men who fought in WWII. As the author says, it is war that compresses the greatest extremes of the human condition into the smallest of ranges in time and space, and no more so than in the unprecedented savagery of WWII.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Ethics. J. Glenn Gray is a philosopher who observed and wrote about how the feeling of friendship was the motivation that caused soldiers in most instances to act courageously. Gray had the ironic experience of receiving his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University the same day he received his draft notice in the mail. He spent over four years serving in combat and occupation duties in Europe during World War II in the Army as an intelligence officer. During this time, he kept a journal of his experiences and several years later, he edited and published his journal The Warriors, which is a compelling examination of the myriad experiences of ordinary soldiers in warfare, filtered through the keen eye of a philosopher. Gray analyzed the historical reasons that cause men to fight battles and what motivates them to willingly put their lives in harms way. Men first go to war for the defense of their country, political ideology, or religious convictions. However, Gray observed, "When through military reverses or the fatiguing and often horrible experiences of combat, the original purpose becomes obscured, the fighter is often sustained solely by the determination not to let down his comrades." Soldiers' fighting as a team in the "crucible of fire" is what ultimately binds them together as a "Band of Brothers" and causes them to forge friendships that in many ways become stronger than their natural family ties. This is the same lesson Aristotle taught two thousand years earlier in his "Nicomachean Ethics"!

I recommend this work to anyone interested in philosophy, and ethics.

This is a deeply personal and thoughtful reflection on the subject of men in battle. While its style displays the academic training of the author, it is really the story of his own search for a philosophical understanding of his experience as a soldier in World War II. While not insistently theological, the author seems to believe that war is included in God's providence and redemptive activity. The strength of the book is the writer's passionate investment in the subject, and his willingness to struggle honestly with the questions facing every warrior.