In 1963, retired Army Colonel T. R. Fehrenbach published This Kind of War. A veteran infantryman who held command in Korea from the platoon to battalion level, Fehrenbach’s treatise is a scathing indictment of the American military and American society. It is also a tragic retelling of America’s forgotten war, in which the same number of Americans perished as in Vietnam- but in one fifth the time.

Fehrenbach’s chief criticism was the American military’s remarkable lack of preparedness to face the North Korean and Chinese onslaught. Discipline was lax, weapons were rusty, and training was not tough enough to prepare men for the horrors they must face to succeed in combat. Fehrenbach wrote that:

“Korea was the kind of war that since the dawn of history was fought by professionals, by legions. It was fought by men who soon knew they had small support or sympathy at home, who could read in the papers statements by prominent men that they should be withdrawn. It was fought by men whom the Army – at its own peril – had given neither training nor indoctrination, nor the hardness and bitter pride men must have to fight a war in which they do not in their hearts believe.” [Pg. 298]

This theme of legions- hardhearted professional soldiers as the core of military excellence- continues throughout Fehnrenbach’s book.

The war to create this country was fought by citizen soldiers and indeed, many of them are counted among our country’s most heralded warriors. Citizen soldiers serve their nation in time of need and afterwards return to their homes, jobs, and families. They are borne during times of great adversity, answering the call when their country is in its darkest hour.

The professional soldier is something very different, bridging the gap between wars of national survival and crusades of moral righteousness. In between these two undertakings is the most confusing of wars: the war of necessity. Citizen soldiers can be asked, but not expected, to rally around a war of necessity because their homes and families are not threatened. It is the professional soldier, who studies his craft like a monk studies holy writ, waiting for the 72 hour warning order to deploy. The professional soldier understands and embraces duty like the citizen soldier, but for the professional soldier, war is a way of life and warfighting is his trade.

What about those other warriors that have become an icon for modern American warfare- mercenaries? Like professional soldiers, mercenaries will fight for pay, but unlike professional soldiers, they fight only for pay. They are loyal only to their employer, and their services are available to the highest bidder. Citizen soldiers fight for their families and cities back home. Professional soldiers fight for their government’s rule of law and their nation’s way of life. Mercenaries fight for themselves; their own way of life.

Because of this, there has always been, and will always be, contempt for mercenaries among soldiers. Being a soldier means sacrificing to be part of and contribute to a system of national defense and putting faith in the elected civilians that control it. Mercenaries have no use for systems or sacrifice, unless they effect the bottom line. Most importantly, unlike soldiers, mercenaries have nothing to gain from the rule of law, peace, or security.


In his conclusion, Fehrenbach describes the modern legionary:

“The man who will go where his colors go, without asking, who will fight a phantom foe in jungle and mountain range, without counting, and who will suffer and die in the midst of incredible hardship, without complaint, is still what he has always been, from Imperial Rome to sceptered Britain to democratic America. He is the stuff of which legions are made. [Pg. 455]

America has legions. On Memorial Day the legionaries gather and remember their comrades who have fallen, who have sacrificed so that they may go on. What do the mercenaries do?

In war, Fehrenbach writes, “For every time a nation or a people commits its sons to combat, it inevitably commits its full prestige, its hope for the future, and the continuance of its way of life, whatever it may be.” [Page 453]

If a nation is unwilling or unable to commit its sons as part of its full prestige, but instead must rely on soldiers of fortune to fill its needs, what does that say about the nation engaging in this combat? We have done this in Iraq, where the private “security contractors” have been given the thin veneer of legitimacy, but cannot ever truly be respected or trusted. The Ugandan mercenaries guarding our bases in central Iraq have nothing to gain from the end of combat, for peace means they lose their jobs. These men will not spend the grueling hours required to wage a successful counterinsurgency- the thankless pursuit of winning hearts and minds and chasing a phantom foe. Their battles are about winning clients and delivering services.

If we as a nation are to consider sending our young men to die for a cause, let us make sure that they are our young men.