The Sheepdogs That Protect The Flock
The Sheep Dislike The Sheepdog Until The Wolves Are At Their Door
Over recent months I have seen an increase on social media referencing the sheepdog analogy in relation to Law Enforcement and Military personnel, so much so that although I guessed what the link between the two was, I needed to look deeper into the source of said analogy and I didn't need to look to far.
The sheepdog speech comes from Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman’s book On Combat, published in 2004. Since then it has spread through military and police circles and with the release of the movie American Sniper, it reached its largest audience to date.
Colonel Grossman crafted this analogy in response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. In Grossman’s original essay, now available on his website, he credits an “old war veteran” with first telling him about wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs.
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath—a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. The above is courtesy of slate.com
But what if you have no capacity for violence and a deep love for your fellow citizens, the urge to protect them without the call to arms? Where do you fit into Colonel Grossmans analogy? it’s not enough to classify the human race into these three simple categories;
In my humble opinion there is another group and that is the Flock itself, the people who are the sheep, who will protect their fellow beings and indeed the sheepdog as a collective if needed. I know many who are part of the Flock who unselfishly put themselves in the path of danger to protect the rest of the sheep and the sheepdog, K9's and their handlers are just one part of this flock, but be assured that these particular sheep are also grateful for the sheepdogs who are the first line of protection against the Wolf.