Gates Of Fire

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What insight about the way people mentally prepare for battle can be learned by listening to Leonidas’s speech to his men after the battle at Antirhion? Bruxieus began to fear for us. We were growing wild. Cityless. In evenings past, Bruxieus had recited Homer and made it a game how many verses we could repeat without a slip. Now this exercise took on a deadly earnestness for him. He was failing, we all knew it. He would not be with us much longer. Everything he knew, he must pass on. While I happily delve into historical fiction on an occasionally regular basis and also enjoy some rousing battles in the more speculative genres, I've never found historical military fiction to be particularly entertaining. This buddy-read turned out to be an outlier. I found Gates of Fire to be nuanced and thoughtfully appealing. But the book goes further than just the names, dates, and places; it is not "history" in the strictest sense, though it strives for such accuracy as historical records can offer. More so Gates of Fire delves into the why and the wherefore: why did these men go, knowing they would die? how were they able to stand and fight knowing that eventually they would be butchered where they stood? what could possibly have motivated the greatest "Alamo" the world has ever known? The book excels in this effort, bringing the concepts of the heroic into terms that the average reader can immediately grasp, or at least imagine.

This, I realized now watching Dienekes rally and tend to his men, was the role of the officer: to prevent those under this command, at all stages of battle--before, during and after--from becoming "possessed." To fire their valor when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand. That was Dienekes' job. That was why he wore the transverse-crested helmet of an officer. His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads. He was just a man doing a job. A job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by his example.” High above the armies, a man of between thirty and forty years could be descried plainly, in robes of purple fringed with gold, mounting the platform and assuming his station upon the throne […] He looked like a man come to watch an entertainment. A pleasantly diverting show, one whose outcome was foreordained and yet which promised a certain level of amusement. He took his seat. A sunshade was adjusted by his servants. We could see a table of refreshments placed at his side and, upon his left, several writing desks set into place, each manned by a secretary. Gates of Fire was on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at West Point, the United States Naval Academy, and at the Marine Corps The Basic School.Think about this quote from General Lejuene about the relationship between officers and enlisted Marines as being that of teacher and scholar as you begin to form your own leadership style and philosophy. What are you seeking to learn right now? How does that help you as a leader? What lessons can you learn about the student you will be passing these lessons on to? Then I thought, Wait a minute, this idea is even crazier than the idea for Bagger Vance. It’s about a battle nobody has ever heard of, that they can’t spell, can’t pronounce–and it was fought by a nation nobody knows anything about and doesn’t care. No one will be interested in this except me. The novel is narrated by Xeones, a perioikos and one of only three Greek survivors of the Battle of Thermopylae. His story is dictated to King Xerxes and transcribed by his court historian, Gobartes. My writing philosophy is, not surprisingly, a kind of warrior code — internal rather than external — in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that I have labeled "Resistance" with a capital R (in THE WAR OF ART) and the technique for combatting these foes can be described as "turning pro."

A big, powerful saga of men in combat, written over the course of thirty-five years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.In Sparta, the army was supported by the perioikoi and helots. Some of those helots were forced into supporting roles, but what led to the mentality of the character Rooster in the book? What actions shaped his perception of Sparta? Forty years later, to my surprise and gratification, I am far more closely bound to the young men of the Marine Corps and to all other dirt-eating, ground-pounding outfits than I could ever have imagined. How have you responded to this type of development in the past and how should you respond in the future?

Read this book and adapt the Spartans’ unconquerable strength and wisdom. Read this book at the risk of being invigorated, and adapt the Spartans’ valorous attitude. Read this book when you want to defeat Phobos (fear) and know in the end that strength in camaraderie, love, and good leadership always have a lot of power to pull you out of tough situations. I’m closing this review with one quote about leadership, it’s a bit long but trust me that you won’t regret reading it. The gas crater is near the village of Darvaza in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 kilometres (160 mi) north of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, it has a diameter of 60–70 metres (200–230 ft) [5] [4] and has a depth of about 30 metres (98 ft). [6] Another nearby gas crater is fenced off, and smells of natural gas. [4] The Mud Crater. About 10 km from the Darvaza Gas Crater. History [ edit ] These are significant issues and, although not really ruinous to the book as a whole, they don’t exactly bode well.Pressfield tells the story of Xeones, one of the survivors of the battle. He is taken, wounded, before Xerxes, and asked to explain “who were these foemen, who had taken with them to the house of the dead ten or, as some reports said, as many as twenty for every one of their own fallen?” In Xeones’ own words, therefore, we get the story of his life; from when his own city is destroyed, to when he comes to Sparta as a slave, to the time when he finally comes to stand beside the Spartiate in the fateful battle. Pressfield sets himself the task of explaining Spartan culture to us in all its glory, humour, brutality and philosophy. To do so, he draws on his personal experience as a US infantryman, as well as the classics. The result is a fascinating tale, on one level a war story written with great pace and excitement, on another a ruminative tale of man’s capacity for honour, heroism, and self-sacrifice.