Eliot A. Cohen
In his contentious confirmation hearing, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed that his mission is “to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense.” It is a terrible idea.
The archetype of the Western warrior is Homer’s Achilles. Superbly fit, the “swift runner” Achilles is magnificent in battle. He is an individualist, with dazzling armor and a troop of admiring Myrmidons who would follow him anywhere. His prowess in combat is unsurpassable. He is brought down only by a poisoned arrow (a sneaky weapon if ever there was one) fired by the wimpy Paris, whose seduction of Helen had started the Trojan War.
He is also the man who comes close to killing his boss, Agamemnon, over a favorite concubine; sulks in his tent; and weeps when he feels dishonored until his mother (a goddess) comforts him. In a rage over the death of his friend Patroclus in a fair fight, Achilles not only kills the Trojan prince Hector but then drags his body around Troy for his horrified parents and widow to see. An intervention by the gods is all that prevents the body from being ripped apart by this treatment, although Achilles’s initial hope (snarled at the dying Hector) was that dog packs and birds would rend the corpse of the man who fought to defend his city from the horrors of a sacking.
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