In Search of the Warrior Spirit ─ Teaching Awareness Disciplines to the Green Berets

The war in Iraq has heightened interest in the military mindset and raised questions about whether it’s possible to be a mindful, moral fighter at a time when impersonal, technology based warfare reigns. In Search of the Warrior Spirit confronts this thorny issue with Richard Strozzi-Heckler’s trademark personal, sympathetic style. In a top-secret U.S. military experiment, the author was asked to teach Eastern awareness disciplines ranging from aikido to meditation to a group of twenty-five Green Berets. This account chronicles his experiences in the training program and his attempts to revive traditional warriorship in a technological society. In Search of the Warrior Spirit explores the nature of war, the meaning of masculinity, and the need for moral values in the military. The book includes Heckler’s response to 9/11, his experiences with the Pentagon and U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and his poignant reflections on the movie Black Hawk Down, which depicts the deaths of two of his trainees. In this revised edition, the author talks movingly of his visits to Afghanistan with NATO and about the Trojan Warrior Project and Marine Warrior Project, relating the tragic events in a war zone and revelatory conversations with both ordinary soldiers and such leaders as the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD, is President of Strozzi Institute, The Center for Leadership and Mastery. He has a sixth-degree black belt in aikido and a doctorate in psychology. Dr. Strozzi-Heckler has taught the principles of embodied leadership and mastery to business, government, military, non-profits, health care, and education for the last thirty years. He is the author of The Anatomy of Change and The Leadership Dojo; and the editor of Aikido and the New Warrior, Being Human at Work: Bringing Somatic Intelligence into Your Professional Life, and Holding the Center.