By William D. Slicker
Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has stated that he wants to return the U.S. military to the Warrior Ethos.[1] What does that mean? It has had at least three meanings.
To Pete Hegseth, it meant weeding out the “toxic leaders” who were promoted based on race and gender quotas; restoring standards of fitness and training; and promoting people based on merit.[2]
For the U.S. Army the Warrior Ethos is a creed: “I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.”[3] Some people have traced this meaning from the successful armies of antiquity, such as the Greek Spartans, the Roman legions, and Alexander the Great, through history to the present.[4]
However, there is a deeper meaning to the term Warrior Ethos best expressed by Jean Larteguy in The Centurions when he wrote: “Have you noticed that in military history no regular army has ever been able to deal with a properly organized guerilla force? If we use the regular army in Algeria, it can only end in failure. I’d like France to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, fanfares, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals… The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage battle dress, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught.”[5] These men would be men able and willing “to do the job irrespective of all legality and conventional method.”[6]
These guerilla fighters have been able to defeat conventional forces throughout history. At the battle of Teutoburg Forest, the Germanic tribes annihilated three Roman legions comprised of 25,000 men by ambushing the legions from embankments in the forest.[7]
During the American Revolution, the colonials successfully used guerilla warfare against the larger British forces. Perhaps the leading example was Francis Marion who was known as the Swamp Fox. His troops harassed the British by attacking their supply lines and by setting up ambushes.[8] The British lost the war.
During World War II, several clandestine groups operated behind German lines, committing acts of sabotage and ambushing German patrols.[9] The Germans lost the war.
In overseeing the Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara foolishly limited American conventional forces to not going behind the border of South Vietnam. In his memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, even he recognized that it was a mistake. There were, however, a few secret forces that “crossed the fence” and went into Laos and Cambodia. Some of them have written about their experiences.[10]
Many others have not. My father, M.F. “Slick” Slicker piloted the C-7A Caribou into Cambodia on missions to take indigenous troops and supplies to isolated air strips deep in the jungle. He would swoop down, unload out of the rear cargo door, and lift off as fast as he could, hoping he wasn’t fired on.
Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese Army used guerilla warfare on a much larger scale than the Americans. The North Vietnamese won the war. It was the North Vietnamese that Larteguy wanted the French to emulate in Algeria.
In Afghanistan, the Mujahidans used guerilla tactics to defeat the conventional Soviet forces.[11]
The modern United States military is acknowledging the importance of guerilla warfare. General David Petraeus, formerly commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, had Larteguy’s The Centaurions on his bookshelf.[12] Under General Petraeus’ leadership, U.S. guerilla warfare was a significant part of the Iraq war strategy.[13] So while on one level, the Warrior Ethos refers to all military forces, on another level the Warrior Ethos refers to those who are willing to go behind the enemy lines who “with few scruples, a taste for fighting and danger, a sharp mind capable of adapting itself to every situation.”[14] It is these men that play a large part in winning w
[1] Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Addresses General and Flag Officers at Quantico, U.S. Department of War (Sept. 30, 2025) https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318689/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-addresses-general-and-flag-officers-at-quantico-v/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Warrior Ethos – Army Values https://www.army.mil/values/warrior.html
[4] Pressfield, Steven, The Warrior Ethos, Black Irish Entertainment, LLC, 2011.
[5] Larteguy, Jean, The Centurions, Hutchinson & Co. 1961
[6] Ibid.
[7] Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest, The Cultural Experience https://www.theculturalexperience.com
[8] Reuwer and Bostick, Ambush: Francis Marion and the Art of Guerilla Warfare, American Battlefield Trust (July 24, 2024) https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/ambush-francis-marion-and-art-guerrilla-warfare
[9] https://www.britannica.com/event/resistance-European-history
[10] Maurer, David, The Dying Place, Random House, 1986; Meyer, John Stryker Across the Fence, SOG Publishing, 2011.
[11] Dick, CJ, Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, January, 2002 https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/96457/02_Jan.pdf
[12] Robert Kaplan’s Forward to the 2015 edition of The Centurions.
[13] Hoffman, Tip of the Spear: U.S. Army Small-Unit Actions in Iraq, 2004-2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2009.
[14]Ibid.
