Warrior vs. Warfighter: The Battle Within

Part 1

This is the first of article series that will expound upon the idea of being a warrior vs. a warfighter and why the latter is a detriment to personal and societal growth. I initially wrote about the differences in one of my original articles entitled The Warrior And The Warfighter: Metaphors For What It Means To Be A Man (which is still one of my favorite articles to have written). If you haven’t read that, I encourage you to do so before reading this.

Earlier this year, the Secretary of Defense vowed to return the military to a “warrior ethos.” And in a speech delivered at the Army War college he used the term “warfighter” six times.

While I do believe in a warrior ethos and without wading into the politics, I believe there’s a difference between being a warrior and being a warfighter.

I say this as someone who has learned this lesson the hard way. I served 13 years in the Navy as a SEAL, with most of my time at the pinnacle of that community. I did eight combat deployments and loved every minute of it. From the age of 17, I knew I wanted to be on the battlefield—carrying a gun and getting into gunfights just seemed fun to me (and it was).

But I quickly realized that doing the job wasn’t just about me or what I wanted. It was about the guys next to me and the purpose we served collectively. And truth be told, my identity became what I did, not who I was—a very slippery slope, I would later learn.

When I left service, like many veterans, I lost both my purpose and myself. I continued to cling to the identity of a warfighter, even as that identity stopped serving me. My transition to civilian life was far tougher than I admitted—especially to myself.

It took a panic attack in my tiny DC apartment one night to finally break through the denial. I had been numbing my pain with booze, “frog hogs” (men and women who just want to associate themselves with a SEAL to make themselves feel better), and half-hearted job leads that went nowhere. Without a fight to train for I didn’t know who I was, so I did the next best thing and created one. I brought the fight to my internal battlefield. Unfortunately, the enemy of that fight was me.

That panic attack was a blessing in disguise because it marked the beginning of a new kind of battle. For years I had fought an external enemy—a far easier cry than facing the one inside, I would learn.

The enemy “out there” is much easier to fight than the one “in here.” The same problem solving strategies simply do not work, which I highlighted in the article entitled Control Isn’t The Solution. It’s The Very Essence Of The Problem.

It’s a battle that warfighters are not trained to fight, and I didn’t have the tools to navigate it. So, I had to do something that felt completely foreign, something so uncomfortable and completely antithesis to everything I was ever taught—and not just by the military but as a child growing up: I sought therapy. I talked about my emotions. My defenses. The behaviors I learned as a kid that kept me safe but no longer serve me as an adult. I faced a lot of demons that I didn’t even know were there. And I learned how to let go of the pain that initially led me to become a war fighter in one of the most elite warfighting teams in the world. And in doing so, I discovered what it truly meant to be a warrior.

Warfighters focus on the external enemy. Warriors take on the internal one.

Fighting our own demons—the voices of fear, shame, ego, grief—is the hardest fight of all. It’s one we’re all trained—conditioned—to avoid, because it requires a much greater strength than the one we reserve for external threats. It requires us to summon herculean strength and swim against the strongest current that any of us ever face: our own ego.

Too often, the energy needed to heal gets redirected. We fight our colleagues, our partners, our political opponents, even other nations, as a proxy for the internal battles unlived; the battles we haven’t faced. We numb ourselves with social media, alcohol, work, and other addictions that allow temporary relief from the pain we are too afraid to face head on. But real transformation—real courage—and ultimately real healing comes from turning inward. This is what warriors do, because warfighters are incapable. Warfighters personify the very fear they seek to avoid. More on this in upcoming articles.

At 48, I finally understand that the most important battles in my life weren’t in a war zone. They were—and are—with myself. Therapy is the tool I use to fight and I’m still in it.

Today, I’m proud to be training as a therapist for those who run toward danger and service—who, like me, are learning that the bravest thing they can do is look inward. By looking inward, the outward becomes clear.

That’s what it means to be a warrior.

Next week I’ll talk more about the differences, and in upcoming articles I’ll share how to take the first steps to becoming a warrior.