The Troops of a Father and Son: Impact and Implications

I received a great amount of feedback to my last post in addition to some questions. In general every blogger has to accept a trade off: shorter posts are nice to read but you have to be incredibly judicious in what you post, while longer posts allow you to include a great amount of detail but you may loose a greater number of readers. Those of you that know me from grad school know that I prefer the short school. I generally do short posts and leave a few assumptions unspoken. Since I seemed to garner some interest I will now flesh out a few of those unspoken assumptions and add a few that commentators brought to my attention.

Nature of the text: This was the work of a Chinese military leader during the Warring States Period, roughly 400-300 BC. A common problem during the period was the increasing size of armies. The Spring and Autumn periods featured armies of roughly 30-50 thousand. A few hundred years later these armies had swollen to the hundreds of thousands. And these large armies could wipe out the existence of a nation in one campaign. That is why the number of states dwindled during the Warring States period from 30 to 1. Thus the command and control of large numbers of conscripts became a significant concern for leaders. Since Chinese culture already valued the respect of a child for a parent this was applied by military theoreticians. The works of Sun-Tzu, Wu-Tzu, and Wei Liao-Tzu contain admonitions that a general must be a father and the soldiers the son. This implies trust, respect and obedience in both parties that should increase the performance of armies as I described in my previous post. In fact, many of the spiritual principles found in Chinese Theory result from pragmatic concerns. The stress on these emotions were a powerful and effective way to teach leadership and soldier skills. If you examine my posts "Full Time Soldiers" and "Military Causes for the Problems in Helaman" you would see where I detected and described an increase in the army size and length of service basically similar to what Chinese Society faced in the Warring States period. So the Chinese text can help us illuminate the problems that Nephite society faced and what Mormon thought was the answer to it: stronger families as shown by the Sons of Helaman.

And perhaps a final question is in order: since Mormons today have such good families does that explain their stellar record of service to their country? Service in the country can mean work in government agencies, the military, and even service industries such as Doctors, lawyers, teachers, and the fulfillment of civic duties. Do the traits that make one a "good son" have a causal effect on the number of people that give service and the quality of that service?

Mother and Son: A commentator mentioned the difference in texts between the father and son of Wu-Tzu and the mother and son mentioned by the Sons of Helaman (hereafter cited as SoH). But many readers of Alma 56:47 look at the last half of the verse but miss out on the first half: Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives

The SoH had a cultural fortification similar to the ancient Chinese and they stated it to their father general. I don't feel the statement about their mothers is a major aberration from the text of Wu-Tzu. The Chinese text is a prescriptive military tract. While the BoM contains a description of events. In the transfer from prescriptive theory to descriptive narrative we should expect minor differences and be flexible in our application of the former to the latter.

The Beauty of the Lilies...ummm er...military theory: Its one of the fun ironies of being a military historian that sometimes the most beautiful things I read are poetry. Those that have read Charge of the Light Brigade should already appreciate that fact, but this is military theory written in terse Eastern prose. I will re post it here in a way that accentuates its form:

When they advance they cannot be withstood;
when they withdraw they cannot be pursued.
Their advancing and withdrawing are measured;
the left and right flanks respond to the signal flags.
Even if broken off from the main order they preserve their formations;
even it scattered they will reform lines.
They will hold together in peace;
they will hold together in danger.
Their number can be assembled together,
but cannot be forced apart.
They can be employed,
but they cannot be exhausted.
No matter where you can dispatch them,
no one under Heaven will be able to withstand them.
They are called 'the troops of a father and son.'

I can't force anybody to appreciate poetry, but I hope you can notice its form and message. [I'm not a poetry teacher I'm a historian, I hope I have given you enough context and examples to appreciate its beauty]

A Model for life: I asked a question earlier that applies to this section. Does the filial duty that modern LDS are known for reflect itself in superior quality of LDS servicemen? I plan on posting in the future about the paradoxical nature contained in a military text ostensibly devoted to being a more proficient killer that actually points out many of the proper moral behaviors we should have in our daily life.

Ritual Warfare: I've mentioned the similarity of this point across ancient civilizations in several places on my blog. Please check out "But Ricky", "Prearranged Battle", and "Homeric Warfare".

As always I invite comments.