Warrior Values Comparison

All throughout Basic Combat Training, Drill Sergeants habituate recruits to reciting the Soldier's Creed. There are an abundance of facts and nomenclature and other things one needs to learn to go in front of a military board, or to remember simply because it's general knowledge and it can be helpful to know so one can possibly apply it later on. One canon Soldiers need to know, and it is extremely important to live by, are the Army Values. Without the Army Values, Soldiers have no discipline, no ethical backing for personal and professional support.

There are seven Army Values, and they are:

1. Loyalty
2. Duty
3. Respect
4. Selfless Service
5. Honor
6. Integrity
7. Personal Courage

There is an interesting and intensely notable comparison between these seven values and the Seven Virtues of Bushido. The Seven Virtues are:

1. Loyalty
2. Benevolence
3. Respect
4. Honesty
5. Honor
6. Rectitude
7. Courage

Now, honesty, and rectitude can both take the reigns as integrity since rectitude is defined as "rightness of principle or conduct; moral virtue," and synonyms for rectitude include "integrity" and "principle." The relation and repeated value just goes to show that integrity is extremely substantial to being a disciplined warrior. Without honesty, without integrity, an individual is simply a lying fool, a person who is no better than a thief. It's no surprise that the Army would share the same moral principles as Bushido, seeing as the Soldier and the Samurai* are archetypal warriors.

*Not all samurai were noble, of course, and there were even periods of history when the code of Bushido was used for evil/bad intentions. One of said periods was the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. The Japanese military brainwashed its forces into believing their morals for the kamikaze attack were from Bushido, and in actuality, it later became known as "Dark Bushido."