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I have an interest in ego, after years of admonishments from my dad. And from seeing Chinese sages and Japanese sensei’s (martial arts) lead by example for having their ego under control. I am certain, just from my knowing human nature, that “Honest Abe” would have had a great ego, yet he surely did a masterful job of hiding it, and remembering to be humble. Lincoln is my model.
Government leadership positions, in England and France, invariably bring out ego, or so British writer W. Somerset Maugham noted. For a time, Maugham was a secret agent. He said he quit because he had trouble playing along and taking it seriously. For my part, I was fine “playing the game” with fellow soldiers, fine with the ego of soldiers here and overseas. It was only peacetime elite soldiers—I served with the Canadian Airborne Regiment—who grated on me, in retrospect, as I found them each a tad too selfish, and the officers being a tad too careless of their men compared to other units—I learned to get up at the crack of dawn and get off base on my days off lest the O’s suddenly remember some extra training for us. (We were on salary 24/7)
Down the years I have learned to tell myself: Don’t be fooled by Hollywood images for servicemen or big business executives. Perhaps because no one I know was born rich, everyone I know goes through life a little gingerly, finding, say, the overconfident penguins in the Madagascar movies to be just too funny to be true.
But what about “tempered in the fire” soldiers? One might ask. One might then find folks like my dad referring to his five WWII medals as his gongs. A modest man, he was proud of me, but didn’t care whether I was elite or not. Long before Dad was old and wise he knew: President Lincoln put on his pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.
Russian soldiers, right now, seem to have their ego beaten out of them. As for the Russian people, I think the West is foolish to hope the Russians will depose Putin. There is a reason Americans, by world standards, are known for optimism and a can-do attitude. As I see it, the Russians don’t think they “can do-in” President Putin, and they don’t think his replacement would be any better, except, maybe, in regards to their current ‘military manoeuvre” which they still don’t know is a “war.” Stupid censorship. Strange to think that we, thousands of miles away, know more about Russian casualties than Russians do.
If I might put on my World Citizen hat: From Quora Digest, from Nelson McKeeby
, self described as: Worshiper at Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) (1966–present)Feb 27, comes this look into casualties;
QUOTE
The first and most surprising thing we are finding from the invasion is the number of dead the Russians are suffering. Ordinarily it is very hard to find out Russian casualties as they have a nifty method of covering up their losses, moving the home base of deployed soldiers to isolated regions. Yet now we have a front row seat to them, and that is because British intelligence is watching hospital admissions.
Hospital admissions you might ask, what the world does that matter? Well, Russia does not have a first class medical system for wounded and dead soldiers. Their limited capacity can be rapidly overrun, so they have, and this has been true since the Soviet Union, drafted local hospitals into the game.
The city with the trauma beds and surgical teams available for rapid treatment of war wounded is Bryansk. And guess what? They are overflowing. A sample on day one shows 480 dead and 1000 wounded. Day two has 250 dead and 550 wounded. By today the UK has found 3000 dead.
Think of that. They are losing more people each day than the US lost in a year in Iraq or Afghanistan. While this not sustainable, they will have to reduce operational tempo, it shows the desperation in the Russian commanders to make their four day progress target of taking the eastern half the country.
It is not like Russia is not inflicting damage. There are around 50,000 Ukrainian civilian casualties which have thus far flooded medical facilities, this number from Amnesty International. The use of rocket artillery on civilian concentrations to induce a panic has appeared to have reversed the trend of modern warfare becoming better at avoiding innocent lives being taken.
UNQUOTE
Taking off my citizen hat, returning to the world of people and ego, I find, again from Quora, what a decorated veteran fromYugoslavia, Roland Bartetzko, self described as: former German Army Paratrooper, Croatian Defense Council, Kosovo Liberation Army, said about boasts from warriors with too much ego:
QUOTE
Another telltale sign of a guy who is making things up is a lack of modesty. Combat means constantly screwing up, so when someone tells you they’ve never failed, they are either omitting something or they’ve never been near a battlefield.
UNQUOTE
Like I said, everybody I know moves through this world gingerly.
…
…
Sean Crawford
With “Live and let live” for other cultures,
Except in wartime,
March,
2022
As for getting respect, my father would agree with the ex-soldier above who answered …
“…The main problem, however, is that “making others respect you” is in itself counterproductive. I could never respect someone who is craving for my respect. People who do such things are often considered attention whores or sanctimonious pric*s.
You don’t have to shine with achievements or the quality of your character. Instead, try not to be an idiot to other people and stand up for what you believe is right.
For me, this would be enough to respect you.”
Afterthought: As for ego, too much means hubris, as noted in my essay earlier this month, Moved to Pity After Reading Circe. I guess Putin thinks he’s perfect, because he’s been as incautious and ears closed as, well, Hitler and Ancient Greek Tyrants. I expect he’ll find that hubris leads to a fall.
