Courage and the draft

The world came to Toronto in 2017 to see the Invictus Games.  This is the single most Heathen sporting event in existence, and one of the most important to me.  The Invictus Games celebrate the athleticism, drive, and determination of our wounded warriors, our soldiers who marched away to war in our service and came back less than whole.

More than the Olympics, the Invictus Games celebrates those who have had the courage to overcome, who have dared to meet the harshest blows of this world and to rise again, unconquered, and claim their greatness.

70. It is better to live | than to lie a corpse,
The live man catches the cow;
I saw flames rise | for the rich man’s pyre,
And before his door he lay dead.

71. The lame rides a horse, | the handless is herdsman,
The deaf in battle is bold;
The blind man is better | than one that is burned,
No good can come of a corpse.

Our gods teach us that wyrd weaves as it will, there is no judgement in it.  Wounds do not steal your worth, nor do they steal from you the chance to continue to build it.  Wounds are not shameful, but rather the markers of the challenges you have faced in your life.  If you faced your challenge well, then the scars are marks of hard won pride, not shame.

The Celt believed only the whole and perfect man could be King, that somehow a scarred King would wound the land.  The Norse believed almost the opposite; for the accepting of the cost of your service marked you as a man or woman who was worthy of the power in their care.  Odin gave his eye for wisdom, Tyr his hand to show the worth of his word was more than his sword arm, and Thor bears still the millstone in his skull that battle chanced to put there.  There is no shame in bearing wounds, or loss; our highest gods bear their scars and wounds openly, and dare us to do the same.

This is the reality of the warrior culture so many Brosatru miss while swilling cheap beer and boasting of their guaranteed place in Valhalla, based on little more than mead hall boasts and heavy metal lyrics, rather than any deeds of service to the folk.  The reality of a “warrior culture” is the acceptance of loss as a cost of life.

Our whole people lived with this.  Women bore their children in the sure and certain knowledge that many of them would die, and that each birth, they too might die.  Farmers, fishermen, and craftspeople understood that when they took up their tools, a single mistake or mischance could cost them limb or life as surely as any warrior of the line of battle.

We lost that.  Our medicine has been a boon to us, for which I thank the gods and ancestors every day, but it came with a lie.  The lie that we are immortal, that death and injury are banished, and if they should confront us in our lives with their presence, then we have been betrayed!

We have been betrayed only in the teaching of that lie, and this treason we commit to each generation, making them less able to cope with the hard things wyrd weaves for all of us in our turn.  Loss of a loved one, loss of health to chronic illness, loss of limb or ability to serious injury; some or all of these our children will face, prepared or not.  Our only choice is that last one; do we prepare them, or not?

My middle daughter was the one who was most likely to follow me into the service, as she inherited the temperament I had from my father, and he from his.  This will not be anymore as she suffered a permanently disabling spinal injury when rear ended by a truck.  Just eighteen, and permanently disabled; to what extent, we will not know for a while.

I first encountered life changing injury during my time in the Armed Forces.  I volunteered to make of my body an offering to the folk, hoping to offer only my time, dedication and skills, but aware that I could also be offering my health, or even my life.  We don’t really think or talk to much about the various ugly places between hale and whole, and valiant dead, as the middle ground is far scarier than either of the extremes.

You don’t think so?  Well, perhaps when you have seen enough death, and enough crippling injury, you will realize that the dead do not have anything to fear, but the living often do.

The athletes of the Invictus Games are important to us because they bring back pride, power, and most of all, VICTORY to those whom wyrd has woven permanent loss of limb or ability due to injury.

Most important of all Odin’s bynames is Sigfather; Victory-father.  It is not death we fear, for death waits for us all, and can no more be run from than can the coming night.  It is defeat, loss, and the humiliation that attends each that we fear, it is powerlessness, despair, and the shame attendant on weakness.

We are our deeds.  These words ring through modern Heathen practice as the root, the central tenant we all share.  Some understand the whole culture of building worth, and have the full lexicon of terms by which we know how what we do shapes how both we think of ourselves, and how our community thinks of us.  Judgement is a truth we accept;  like gravity, denying it does not make it go away, or make for wise decisions through pretending its not there.

The disabled are left with the corollary of this.  We who have always measured ourselves and found ourselves worthy based on the number and power of our deeds must find ourselves worthless in our own eyes when the chance to do those deeds is stripped from us by fate.

Suicide rates do not come from no where, they come from a despair that looks upon a life and sees no worth in it, nor potential for worth in it.  This is where the disabled are most vulnerable, in the sense of worth that should be the greatest source of their strength.

Our ancestors understood this.  They did not expect the wounded to battle for the same things, or the same standards as the whole.  They expected them to contribute, to give their all and to build worth in the doing; they literally could not understand the mindset that rejected the reality of a lost limb and judged the wounded person by the standards they met when fully able and whole of body.

The lame rides a horse, hand-less is herdsman.  You cannot build your worth through the deeds of before, but there are other deeds you are well suited to meet, other needs of the folk that you can meet.  No one accounts Tyr or Odin as less worthy due to their loss, rather they look upon their deeds in spite of that as inspiration to drive them to find their own greatness with the body and ability they have now.

The soldiers of the Invictus games were volunteers to the field of battle, but they were drafted, as it were, into the ranks of the disabled.  Those of our children, siblings, spouses and friends who find themselves struck down by disease or accident are likewise drafted into this challenge.

The soldiers of the Invictus Games are assumed to be courageous, as they volunteered to risk their lives and health in the nations service.  The truth is, they are among the most vulnerable.  No one who has not served can know how much it shapes you, how the awareness of giving one hundred percent of your ability and strength, to achieve a mission at all costs, and know that you are operating at a level most will never achieve even fleetingly, changes you forever.  Once that is stripped from you, you are not returned to the civilian you were, you are simply a soldier who can no longer live up to the image of ability that had become the pillar of your self identity.

We lose a lot of wounded warriors, which is why the Invictus Games came to be.  The Sig-Father, our father Odin, is not just the Battle Glad, he does not simply love us for the clash of arms, and the feast for his ravens that are the fallen.  Odin is the Victory Bringer, the Wise Counselor, the bringer of inspiration, poetry, and the wisdom of coping in all its wondrous, and wondrously flawed forms.

It is time to heed his counsel, to bring back Victory for our wounded, for our disabled.  Time for them to not hide their scars, empty sleeves, or wheel chairs, but to wear them as proudly as any medal, for they are the spoils of the victor, the survivor, of the strong.

Wyrd weaves as it will, there is no judgement in it.  One of my favourite words when it comes to living with the bad things that happen in life is FISH.  Short for “Fuck It, Shit Happens”.  The gods have never judged us by our success or failure, they have judged us by how we face our challenges, and how we meet our responsibilities.  Victory in the battle is Odin’s to give, but victory in your challenge is YOURS to take.  Who wins or loses may be beyond your strength to decide, but how you meet that challenge is beyond the power of any god, Queen or President, beyond any Parliament or law, it is literally only your own decision that will or can determine how you meet that challenge every single day.

Stop letting the memory of what you were steal from you the chance to find out what you can be today.  Stop mistaking the wound that wyrd wove into your life as being the results of your battle; it is not your loss, but it has changed the nature of the victory that is yours to win today.  Heed the Victory Father, if you are still breathing, you have not lost.  Find your victory conditions, and fight for them as hard as you did when full strength and speed were yours, and you will build your worth not only to yourself, but to the world.

My daughter will never be as she was before the accident.  She is not now weak, nor should you pity her.  She has much less strength and flexibility than before, and will pay a price for each breath and each step that would make a strong man tremble, but she will pay it, because she is not done yet.  She is not beaten, has not accepted defeat as written in her wounds.  I hope I can help her find the ways to define her victory conditions so the will and drive that made her so strong and capable again become a positive, rather than a weapon to use to hurt herself.  The strongest and most able among us are the harshest in punishing themselves when wyrd takes from them the ability to meet their own standards.  My daughter is strong and proud as ever I was, and I hope less foolish.

Odin, Victory Father, I ask your blessing that you teach our wounded ones how to define and fight for their victories every day of their lives, that when they chance to fall, their lives will shine with worth, and their deeds will be many days in the telling.  Tyr the most holy, as you understood the choice between your honour and your power could have only one answer, help those who have had much of their power stripped from them to understand that honour is still theirs to win.  Thor, defender of mankind; laughing god of the common man and woman, please teach those who have been laid low by fate to rise again, to laugh again, and to strive again.

No one volunteered to be wounded, to be broken.  Those who are disabled to a man were drafted into this state, and yet this does not mean that they do not possess courage!  Those who rise each day to a struggle greater than the whole may know, and frequently for stakes far less rich than the whole compete for, require more courage and more strength to rise each day and do battle.  To those who rise to this every day, may the Victory Father be with you always.

Heed the lesson of the Invictus Games,

 

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Disabled Veterans: Who stands on guard for them?

Who stands on guard for them?

In our anthem, we proudly offer the promise, of true patriot love, to stand on guard for thee.  Now I ask the question, for the sons and daughters who take up arms, and stand on guard for thee, who stands on guard for them?

Once it was the Canadian people, for under their direction the government of Canada vowed it would match the commitment of those brave men and women who offered their very lives for their country, that those who suffered loss through that service would be honoured and compensated for their losses for the length of their lives.  Once to offer your life, and come back wounded, was to know that your nation would look after you in life, as you risked your life to look after it.  No more.

 

In a 1917 speech by Prime Minister Robert Borden during the First World War: “The government and the country will consider it their first duty,” Borden said, “to see that a proper appreciation of your effort and of your courage is brought to the notice of people at home that no man, whether he goes back or whether he remains in Flanders, will have just cause to reproach the government for having broken faith with the men who won and the men who died.” [1]

This is the Canada that was, a Canada that was worth the blood of its sons and daughters.  We stand now at the hundred year anniversary of Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian Army undertook under its own banners and leadership a task the mighty British Army and proud French Army had both undertook and failed.  We stood for the first time not as a child of the British Empire under their leadership, but as a world power, a nation of proud and independent identity.  For the first time we raised our own banner and strode into history by breaking a German defence that cast down the mightiest militaries of its day.  Our newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood at Vimy and spoke thus.

“Consider:

The price they paid.

The burden they bore.

The country they made.

Seven thousand and four Canadians were wounded in the battle that began here, 100 years ago today. Three thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight Canadians died.

 

This, from a population, in 1917, of just eight million.

Think of it, for a moment. The enormity of the price they paid.

These were, for the most part, young men in their late teens and early twenties. Not professional soldiers. But they were superbly trained. And supported by months of painstaking preparation.

Yet for all that, they still required courage – to a degree that is hard to fathom.

They weren’t impervious to fear, these men. They were human. Homesick, tired, footsore and cold.

Yet still, they advanced. Uphill, through mud. Under fire. They advanced, fighting like lions, moving just behind a devastating allied artillery barrage.

And they did not stop. They did not stop, until they had victory.”[2]

 

This is the military tradition of my nation, the system that trained my Grandfather in WWII, my father who deployed with the UN to such far flung and unheralded conflicts as the Belgian Congo, and in turn myself.  There was a big difference between the welcome we returned to.  Seven of my family went to the First World war, two returned, and vowed the names of the five who did not live to have sons would be the names of each of their sons in memory. I bear two of those names, as does my father, grandfather, and uncles.  We remember, we keep the covenant.  The two who returned after WWI received parades, as did the three sons and one daughter who returned from WWII, although Great Uncle Ran received instead a name graven on a memorial, and burial in foreign soil.

My father and Uncle Jack who fought in the Congo, like those who fought in Korea, Viet Nam, Bosnia, Somalia, or deployed to any of the thousand war zones our sons and daughters have served our nations in the past generations did not receive such parades; received often open disdain instead.  A military disdained by the Canadian people was told every year since the 1960’s to do more with less.  Our NATO obligation is to spend 2% per year on our military and we have never done so.  We cycle too few people in tired, mostly breaking down equipment into war zones again and again, pretending with a staff of senior officers and banners that we actually have the forces that these regimental banners imply.  We deploy the same bodies again and again, as we don’t’ actually have three battalions of troops per regiment, so we are not rotating actual troops so much as conducting a shell game with banners while much of the gear and senior non-commissioned troops cycle again and again through the fire until they are broken.  This is what “doing more with less” translates into.
We sacrifice our sons and daughters.  We use them up, we expend them.  We don’t have the bodies to meet our commitments in a sustainable fashion, so we are forced to do so in an unsustainable fashion.  Our sons and daughters step into the fire again and again, because that is the greatness that built this nation.  That excellence burns in the hearts of our best and brightest, and these are what we are breaking through our careless belief that these political games that allow politicians to make great promises without actually spending any money on increasing the ability of a force that has not been supported properly since the 1950’s.  The politicians spend the blood of our children, because its cheaper than tax dollars in the budget.

Now they want the blood for free.

Afghanistan saw a return to the Canadian people being proud of their soldiers, but the Government that sent them there, Steven Harper’s Conservatives argued that Sir Robert Borden promising to care for Canadian war veterans for life was just a politicians promise, only an election lie, and not something the Government of Canada was actually bound by.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party platform in his election platform stated:

 

“Our servicemen and women, who have put their lives on the line for their country, stand for the very best of what it means to be Canadian. For many, their commitment has come at a high cost. During our mission in Afghanistan, for example, 158 members of the Canadian Armed Forces lost their lives, with thousands more wounded or left suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, our brave women and men are stationed in conflict zones, including Ukraine, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, contributing their expertise as trainers, peacekeepers, in combat and in disaster relief, among other areas. We have a social covenant with all veterans and their families that we must meet with both respect and gratitude.

 

For a decade, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have dishonoured us all by failing to uphold this sacred obligation. They have not been truthful to, or respectful of, our veterans. They have laid off hundreds of frontline support staff and closed nine local service offices – making it even harder for veterans to access a vital support system that the Auditor General already criticized as “complex and time-consuming.” Veterans who need crucial mental health services are waiting months, even years, to get help. Harper even left over $1 billion budgeted for veterans’ services unspent.

 

A Liberal government will live up to our obligation to Canada’s veterans and their families. We will demonstrate the respect and appreciation for our veterans that Canadians rightly expect, and ensure that no veteran has to fight the government for the support and compensation they have earned.”[3]

 

Talk is cheap.  So are the promises of the Canadian Government.

 

Once in power, the “Right Honourable” Justin Trudeau reinstated the Harper governments stance.  Justice Department lawyers arguing for the government stating in court “the government is required to give disabled former soldiers only as much as Parliament chooses. It also says the principle of the “honour of the Crown,” which requires the government to act honourably during negotiations and upon which the veterans relied in making their case, applies only to agreements with aboriginal people.”[4]

 

The lawsuit in question is not actually asking for veterans to be looked after in any special fashion.  The lawsuit in question is raised by Veterans who are asking for their permanent disabling injuries to be treated the exact same as any other workplace injury, through the same formula the Workers Compensation Board would set for any workplace accident.
Understand this: the position of the Canadian government is that the bodies of our soldiers are the only worthless ones in this nation.  Any civilian who is permanently injured through work will be covered for life, only those who undertook the defense of their nation can be screwed over with a one time payment far below what you would get if you got the same injuries on a construction site, in an accident as a bike courier, or burned at Starbucks.

Those young men and women who “Stood on guard for thee”  as it says in our anthem, who stands on guard for them?

 

Justin Trudeau, I name thee nithling, honourless oathbreaker.  You have broken faith with those whose service has defended the country and the citizens you lead.  Under your orders they stand into danger, under your orders they bleed, they are crippled and they die, and under your aegis this sacrifice is nothing but an opportunity for a sound byte, an uplifting speech given to your adoring press corps, and certainly not worth the attention of a leader to those who have fallen or been injured in his service.

Service folk are bound by their oaths.  They swear an oath of service, and it binds them even unto death.  We are are oath, and our service.  We oath to the Crown and not the Prime Minister for a reason.  The Crown has kept faith with us, it is our elected officials who care only for the dollars they want to spend on politically attractive programs and not on paying the cost of what they do with our military that have failed us.  When a soldier swears his loyalty to the Crown, and to the people of Canada is it an obligation backed by blood and steel.  When a politician promises to care for the soldiers injured or killed in service to that same government, you should understand, it is just a speech, they don’t actually ever intend on honouring it.

[1]http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Pete+McMartin+Disabled+veterans+rights+matter+justice/10451650/story.html

[2]http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/prime-ministers-statement-at-the-vimy-full-text/

[3] https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/real-change-the-future-we-owe-our-veterans/

[4]https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-owes-veterans-no-duty-of-care-federal-lawyers-argue-in-case/article30465871/?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theglobeandmail.com&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links&service=mobile

 

Ableism, Tribalism, Shield wall and Socialism

 

71. The lame rides a horse, | the handless is herdsman,

The deaf in battle is bold;

The blind man is better | than one that is burned,

No good can come of a corpse.

This passage is one I have used often to overcome the media created nonsense that our ancestors were busy seeking death.  You don’t have to seek death, it is issued with each birth, the one unbroken promise we are given in this life.  Our ancestors knew that this was true, accepted it, and got on with the business of living.  You don’t have to seek it, it will find you on its own.  You shouldn’t waste time running from it, you will just die tired.

Wyrd weaves as it will, and not all of its weavings are weal, some are woe.  Many bad things happen, that is simply life, there is no judgement implied in them, they are simply things that happen.  We have one life, and in that life many things will happen, some of them terrible, some of them simply unpleasant, but if life goes on past that point, it will be faced with whatever changes those bad moments left us with.  This was simply the way it was, there was no sense getting worked up about it.  Life goes on, make the best of it.

Some are born with an ill-woven birth, and spend their entire life with a genetic or developmental disability.  This obviously makes the challenges ahead of them both harder and in some cases, different than they would have faced with a less woefully birth-wyrd.  Other events in our lives will take from us much of our strength, leave us with pain or disability (frequently both).  This is not the end of our life, nor the end of our ability to win honour, glory, success.  This obviously does change the nature of our challenge.

If you were to ask our ancestors, they would cheerfully admit that being born in perfect health was best.  Further, they would agree being good looking, strong, well spoken, wealthy would also be good, and lucky better yet.  They did not hold all outcomes equal, nor all starting points the same.  It was good to be perfectly prepared for all the challenges ahead, but regardless of how prepared you are, the challenges are coming, and you will face them with what you have.  To them, life was an opportunity to build worth.  While starting in a more advantageous position was desired, regardless of where you started from, they expected you to continue to strive to improve; to build your worth, until your thread was cut, and the final interplay between your will and your wyrd was measured.

The lame on a horse is as able as a man with two strong legs, a man without a hand may still tend the cattle (which was the basis of wealth and status for much of our folk’s existence).  A deaf man will not be discomfited by the roars of the enemy, or the screams of the dying.  No matter what the degree of the disability, it is better than nothing, which is death, and still leaves you the ability to build your worth, to meet your challenges.

Hamaval 71 is that most military of all sentiments, “Suck it up, buttercup”.  It tells all who hear it if they are not dead, they are not beaten, now get back up and resume your duties.

I have heard recently some extremely odd opinions on this from a Tribalist perspective.  The implications from what I can understand are that the person whose wyrd has been woven to leave them disabled or disadvantaged is expected to simply “try harder” to “pull up their socks” and achieve equivalent results to fulfil their duty to the tribe, and to do so entirely on their own, so as not to burden the tribe.
I am not sure what kind of comic book this sort of tribe exists in, but it certainly never survived in a real world environment like our North.  Our ancestors did not simply let you succeed or fail on your own, for the tribe as a unit succeeded or failed together.  The tribe would indeed invest to allow you to contribute to the limit of your abilities, but they would do so with a realistic appreciation of those abilities.

The shield-wall is perhaps the best known image of our folk in modern times; equally important was the boar’s head or swine array of the battle charge, but in either case the fundamentals of our folks way of war was based on one particular truth.  My shield is not mine, it is the tribes.  My shield does not ward my body, it wards the line.  Frequently I will uncover my body to cover my shield mate, trusting that my other shield mate will do the same for me.  We do not succeed or fail as splendid isolated individuals, but as a group.

Further to this image, if you could not carry the shield or have the strength to stand in the line, you had no place being there.  You could contribute in other ways, but if you put yourself in the shield wall as if you were as capable as everyone else, but knowing you were not, you have harmed the tribe.

No one ever asked you to overcome the disadvantage of not being able to lift a shield and join the shield wall.  That is foolish.  You would be expected to seek challenges you could overcome and prove your worth in those.  Likewise if you had poor distance vision you would not be advised to train as an archer and hunter, where you could only fail, when you could train as a swordsman, and carpenter where your close vision was perfectly suited.

Scholars may debate Ivar Boneless and whether he was literally carried into battle unable to walk, to lead his troops; they do not debate that Governor Frontenac of Quebec literally was carried into battle at 77 to lead a punitive expedition against the Onondagas in the 1690’s.  No longer able to lift a blade or musket, his mind and will were still without peer and served him and Quebec in their war with the English and Iroquois.

The tribal experience of our ancestors understood collective survival much the same way as the shield wall looked at protection.  You did not simply protect your own skin, but you protected your own folk as the most effective way to protect yourself in the long run.  As communities we came together to deal with problems, as a community we came together to face our enemies, and as a community we pooled our resources to help those whose wyrd had woven them a nasty tangle.  Wyrd weaves as it will, and it weaves most folks a tangle at one point or another, and it is to all of our best interest to see our people not be lost to those tangles.  We are our brother’s keeper, as our family rises and falls together.
The nations founded by those proud Northmen and peerless Northwomen have one inevitable oddity; they all embrace socialism reguarding health care and education.   Tribalism is not succeed or die on your own, for you owe the tribe all your ability.  Tribalism is succeed or fail together, for collectively we are strong, wise, and harmonious; even if frequently every individual in the collective needs assistance in one or more of those particulars.

 
Soldiers are perhaps the last vestiges of feudal society, we understand how fealty works.  When you put your hands between your lords and swear to obey their laws and will, to uphold their interests and defend their honour, the lord swears in return to advance your interests in turn to the limits of his ability (1).  Salutes are an example of this reciprocal duty, as the junior rank may offer the salute, but the senior returns it as honour goes to both the senior and the collective he represents, but also in return to the junior, the individual.  The individual has a duty to the tribe, and from that duty flows the return duty of the tribe to the individual.  There can be NO duty to the tribe if there is not duty of the tribe to the individual.  There can be no obligation to the lord, if the lord bears no obligation to his man.  It is a reciprocal gifting relationship, as Heathens know form the foundation of sustainable frithful society.

You are expected to contribute to the limit of your capability.  A wise society and tribe understands that your contribution will be greater if you are given the tools to use your abilities to their greatest return.  Society then and now was imperfect, some individuals do not hold up there end of any bargain, and there will always be abuses.  This is why we have people to deal with each other on an individual basis after all.  There have always been those who take more than they give, but our society exists and thrives because they are not the majority.  Most seek to give in balance to what they take, and the best give so much more than they ever ask in return that society, as a whole, thrives when we do give each the ability to contribute to the maximum of their abilities, whatever they are.  Wyrd weaves as it will, but we do not lie helpless before our wyrd.

Things happen, many of them bad, we deal with it and move on.   Wyrd gives us a starting point, but that is not where we end, nor is wyrd the only active agency in our lives.  We are a people, a folk.  We live in communities that have vast human and other resoruces.  Wyrd gave you a set of circumstances and the community a set of resources.  Between the two you may find that the lame will find a more modern version of the horse, the deaf may find both hearing aids, speech translation tools,  and training for careers in which their lack of hearing is a non issue.

Hamaval 71

71. The lame rides a horse, | the handless is herdsman,

The deaf in battle is bold;

The blind man is better | than one that is burned,

No good can come of a corpse.

Rough translation: Suck it up buttercup, you lived.  Now take a good look at your resources, your challenges, and focus yourself on making the best you can out of the hand you are dealt. Your victories are there to be taken.   If you are not dead, you are not beaten, nor are you done.  If you live this way, then when you are dead you are still not beaten.

• http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/560-975dooms.asp