Barbarian, Part Two: American Bad-Ass

On the heels of the last post on barbarians, perhaps we should bring it on home with an episode of "American Bad-Ass".
You can have your "Dirty Harry"; the absolute best Clint Eastwood movie is "The Outlaw Josey Wales". As far as attitude, grit and gunfights, this movie is one of the all-time best westerns ever. It was also the first one Eastwood directed himself.
In Richard Heckler's book "In Search of The Warrior Spirit", Heckler describes his experiance teaching Aikido to a group of Green Berets. In this fascinating book, Heckler considers the age-old question of what it is to become a true warrior. In a break between training sessions, he and another instructor watch "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and he finds the perfect warrior scene. It's when Josey Wales rides up to meet the feared Indian chief Ten Bears, I wish I could find the video. Wales comes bearing words of life, and words of death. The words of life are that the Commanche can harvest his beef cattle, and his ranch will have the sign of the Commanche for all to see. His words of death are there, in Ten Bears knives, and here, in Josey Wales' guns. It's up to Ten Bears to choose.
He chooses life.
The Outlaw Josey Wales; first installment of "American Bad-Ass"...