What warrior do you admire the most of all time?

[Catfishman]

The warrior I admire the most is the Viking of Stamford Bridge. In 1066, the Vikings were retreating across the river Derwent and a giant axe-man volunteered to hold the bridge while his comrades retreated. The bridge was narrow, only wide enough for four men to stand abreast. The tale says the axe-man held off the entire Saxon army for nearly an hour, killing up to forty of their best soldiers. Even in the end, the Saxons only beat him by floating someone under the bridge in a barrel armed with a spear who stabbed him from underneath. If I could watch any battle in history it would be this last stand, or the battle of Thermopylae.

[Sam Spade]

Joshua Chamberlain. His bayonet charge at Gettysburg saved an army. Less known is his salute to the surrendering Army of Virginia at Appomattox. He personifies the mix of education, expressiveness, valor and skill at arms that we praise on these boards. His service became a central case study in the old Army FM on leadership.

[Papa]

On the short list, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The warrior, not the klansman.

[barnetmill]

Maybe general Patton. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XpEtHWMpiFc/maxresdefault.jpg

[Gunstore Commando]

Joshua Chamberlain. His bayonet charge at Gettysburg saved an army. Less known is his salute to the surrendering Army of Virginia at Appomattox. He personifies the mix of education, expressiveness, valor and skill at arms that we praise on these boards. His service became a central case study in the old Army FM on leadership.

Great choice.

For those who haven't read the book "The Killer Angels", there is a lot about Chamberlain and his actions at Gettysburg.

[silversport]

Gettysburg or Gods and Generals...movies with Jeff Daniels playing Col/Lt. Col. Joshua (Lawrence) Chamberlain are both worth a watch...

Bill

[Randy Harris]

Actually the movie "Gettysburg" was an adaptation of "The Killer Angels".

[Shooter76]

Hannibal Barca... Hands down the greatest field commander to have ever lived.

[Mike OTDP]

Being a serious student of military history, this is a hard one. And the other people mentioned are all top-tier. But I'll put up a candidate.

Admiral John Fisher, RN.

Fisher wasn't one of the great battle commanders. He never had the chance. But he was responsible for turning the tradition-bound, moribund Royal Navy of the late Victorian era into the razor-sharp fighting force that beat the Germans in the First World War. You hear about his developing the al-big-gun battleship...you don't hear about the creation of a first-class intelligence service. Or the development of network-centric command and control that would leverage the new radio technology to expand an admiral's horizon beyond his own eyesight. Nor the funding of naval aviation...including putting significant money into a firm run by one Thomas Sopwith. And I won't even mention his patronage of men like Sir Julian Corbett, who took naval strategy to an apogee never before seen.

Sometimes, the war is won by men who laid the groundwork for victory, but were never granted the opportunity to command in battle.

[Brent Yamamoto]

History is replete with so many exemplars, it's impossible for me to pick just one. And every person has different environments, contexts...soldiers, law men, civilians, unsung heroes as Mike mentioned above. Sgt. York, Audie Murphy, George Washington, Frank Hamer, Todd Beamer and the others who rushed the cockpit on 9/11...can't pick just one and all have traits we should admire and aspire to.

I love history and it's important to look at our past, important to draw inspiration, ideas, role models, etc.

But I also think it's important to look at our present. What is most real to me is the brothers in my circle, right now. There are several of you who inspire me to be better and drive forward every single day. YOU guys who I have trained with, spoken with, raised glasses to fallen brothers, helped others become stronger, smarter and wiser with your contributions in class, on this forum, and on the various battlefields of life...you are the warriors who I admire most.

There are many of you and you know who you are. I raise a glass to you my brothers. Thank you.

[Vlad the Impaler]

Joshua Chamberlain. His bayonet charge at Gettysburg saved an army. Less known is his salute to the surrendering Army of Virginia at Appomattox. He personifies the mix of education, expressiveness, valor and skill at arms that we praise on these boards. His service became a central case study in the old Army FM on leadership.

General Ireland (who was from Scotland) and the 137th New York did the same thing at Culp's Hill but Chamberlain was a better writer.

[Vlad the Impaler]

Subutai, who was just as good if not better than Genghis Khan, ranks right up there. Gaiseric, the Vandal king who took them from a regional power to ruling the Mediterranean. Dude was a boss. Julius Caesar was brilliant as a military leader. I will also second Hannibal. If he had support from his government, ancient Roman history would be much shorter.

[paknheat]

Gabe Suarez.. I am surprised no one mentioned him yet.

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[Sleestak]

King David.

[CaptShack]

I second Subutai. I find it fascinating how modern his tactics were and he could go up against overwhelming odds and not just survive, but win. This is a little taste of what is written about him on Wikipedia.

“He was the primary military strategist of Genghis Khan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan) and Ögedei Khan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96gedei_Khan). He directed more than 20 campaigns in which he conquered 32 nations and won 65 pitched battles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitched_battle), during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history. Subutai was a major innovator in the art of war, and his later campaigns demonstrated an unprecedented level of complexity and strategy not seen again until World War II. In the invasions of China, Russia, and Europe, Subutai routinely coordinated armies of ~100,000 men across frontages separated by 500-1,000 km and between 3 and 5 separate army groups. Subutai's armies fought unlike any force in history until the Germans and Russians in World War II, seven hundred years later. They did not operate as one distinct mass, but instead moved along 3–5 axes of approach, often 500–1000 km apart, and threatened numerous objectives simultaneously. Like Napoleon, Subutai (and Genghis Khan) would disperse their forces along a wide frontage and rapidly coalesce at decisive points to defeat the enemy in detail. However, unlike Napoleon, the Mongols retained the flexibility to dispatch armies to the widely separate fronts, through inhospitable terrain or during the most unexpected times of year, often using some armies purely as means of fixing enemy attention and fomenting division in their enemies greater than any other army in history. Their methods were aligned to completely crush the enemy state's will to fight, not merely to defeat their armies and hope they surrendered, as Napoleon had. Subutai has been credited as the first general to operate campaigns using the modern organizational methods of command and control.[63] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai#cite_note-63)
Though unknown to the west for many centuries, Subutai's exploits were first featured by the British military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart in his book Great Captains Unveiled after World War I. Liddell Hart used the example of the Mongols under Genghis and Subutai to demonstrate how a new mechanized army could ideally fight using the principles of mobility, dispersion, surprise, and indirect means. Though he gained little support in Britain, Liddell Hart's books were read in Germany, whose armies during the initial 1940–41 invasions of France and Russia bore an astonishing similarity to the campaigns of Subutai, 700 years earlier. In particular, Erwin Rommel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel) and George Patton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton) were avid students of Mongol campaigns.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai#cite_note-64)

[Puddle]

The Comanche nation

[Catfishman]

Gabe Suarez.. I am surprised no one mentioned him yet.

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True, I would be a completely different person now if I hadn't read Gabe's blog posts about predator mindset and how ancient warriors didn't suffer "killer's remorse". I don't have to apologize for being a real man or deciding to intervene if I need to defend innocents. Now I talk to people in the gun community and they're already talking themselves into being cowards before they get into a fight lol.

I'm a beginner but at least I know the right road now!

[wheel]

The person that immediately springs to mind when I think Warrior in my part of the world is Zhaka Zulu.

Not only because of the Short Stabbing Spear that he designed or his famous Horn of the Bull Formation-A number of regiments forming the chest/center while on each side a regiment formed the horns. The horns would curve inwards around the enemy while the main body advanced, killing all those not able to break the line-But because he established a Warrior culture not unlike the Vikings/Samurai; the man spending their time either training/on campaign.

And although my ancestors the Voortrekkers were very effective guerilla fighters taking advantage of the skills learned from hunting and living of the land the never embraced fighting as a full time occupation, returning to farming when hostilities seized. Never establishing fighting in the Afrikaner dna.

Whereas the Zulu nation is synonymous with combat; the mere uttering of the word conjuring up images and expectation fierce fighting. Like the MMA Fighter Nkazimulo Zulu aptly named Zulu Boy.

OSSU!
Elfie

[chad newton]

True, I would be a completely different person now if I hadn't read Gabe's blog posts about predator mindset and how ancient warriors didn't suffer "killer's remorse". I don't have to apologize for being a real man or deciding to intervene if I need to defend innocents. Now I talk to people in the gun community and they're already talking themselves into being cowards before they get into a fight lol.

I'm a beginner but at least I know the right road now!
Lol, That’s your first mistake, talking to people in the gun community....

[offenbacher]

Witold Pilecki"During World War II, Pilecki volunteered for a Polish resistance operation that involved being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to gather intelligence and later escape.[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-3) While in the camp, he organized a resistance movement and informed the Western Allies of Nazi Germany's Auschwitz atrocities as early as 1941.[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-4) He escaped from the camp in 1943 after nearly 2½ years of imprisonment.[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-5) He took part as a combatant in the Warsaw Uprising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising)[6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-6) in August–October 1944.[7] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-Were_We_All_People?-7) He remained loyal to the London-based Polish government-in-exile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_government-in-exile) after the Communist takeover of Poland, and he was arrested for espionage in 1947 by the Stalinist secret police (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urz%C4%85d_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa)) on charges of working for "foreign imperialism", a euphemism for British Intelligence.[8] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-8)[9] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki#cite_note-tch-9) He was executed after a show trial in 1948...."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki

[Shannon Hogan]

I could mention a distant famous ancestor in the Hogan Clan but I shall not. All the choices mentioned above are awesome. Who counts as the finest warriors to me are the hero's who were never acknowledged for their actions. Those that were lucky returned home and said nothing of what they did. Others did their duty unto death and lay in unmarked graves or to the elements marked as MIA. No one but the Trinity are aware of what they did for their buddies and nation. The Privates, the Corporals, the Sergeants, the Junior Officer, the little military pawns, absolutely terrified at the moment of truth but still did their duty.

[Randy Harris]

I wanted to let this one roll for a while before commenting. How do we define warrior? The classical definition of one who has fought in a war? Or is it anyone who has engaged in combat? Is a police officer a warrior? I'd say Bill Allard and Jim Cirillo were. Is a civilian who uses his gun a warrior? I'd say Lance Thomas probably qualifies. Is a criminal a warrior? I'd say John Wesley Hardin was for sure. This is not as simple a question as one might think.

Like most others narrowing this down to just ONE is quite difficult. Looking at just my own home state would fill up a book. Just to name a few I'll throw out John Sevier , Dragging Canoe, Ostenaco, David Crockett, Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, John Coffee Hays, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Jack Hinson, Alvin C. York, and Charles Coolidge. And those are just the most famous ones...

[Randy Harris]

The Comanche nation

In 1840 Buffalo Hump led the largest Indian raid ever (the "Great Raid of 1840 ") raiding all the way to the gulf coast . Not too shabby for a bunch of dudes with bows and spears and clubs on horseback. :wink:

[Greg Nichols]

My mom.

[Faramir2]

My mom.

Good moms truly are warriors, often in multiple sense. My mom typifies that as well.

[wheel]

Randy

For this very reason I wanted to throw Charl van Wyk`s name into the hat.

He is an ordinary citizen who returned fire with his .38 Special revolver when his church was attacked during evening service by four assailants.

Two of the attackers were armed with R4`s and M26 grenades. When he wounded one of them they fled bringing an end to the attack.As well as the intention of one of the attackers to throw four petrol bombs into the church once the shooting stopped. Instead the attacker run and jumped into the getaway car with the other three attackers.

He always makes the short list in my mind when I think Warrior and acts as a great example to use in anti weapon/anti violence debates when I get confronted by people trying to point out to me that my points of view are wrong.

OSSU!
Elfie