Grey Wolf Comes To Washington - A Plains Comanche Schools The Defense Department In Savagery

White Wolf was the most savage, bloody, brutal killer of whites the Union Army had ever seen. His approach was simple - rape, slaughter, behead, eviscerate any white settlers that squatted on Indian land, and no more would follow. 

Defending his land against foreign intruders, and as bloody a warrior as Genghis Khan, White Wolf knew that a purposeful barbarity would intimidate the enemy.  Just as Genghis Khan posted severed heads on roads leading to conquered villages, gruesome warnings to the next settlements in his sights, so did White Wolf use unconscionable savagery as a tool of war.  He knew that the Christian soldiers would see his tribal, animist, ferocity, understand that they were up against a frightening, unfathomable enemy with no moral restraint and would turn tail. 

 

Jonathan Foreman, writing in The Daily Mail said:

S C Gwynne, author of Empire Of The Summer Moon about the rise and fall of the Comanche, says simply: ‘No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.’

He refers to the ‘demonic immorality’ of Comanche attacks on white settlers, the way in which torture, killings and gang-rapes were routine. ‘The logic of Comanche raids was straightforward,’ he explains.

‘All the men were killed, and any men who were captured alive were tortured; the captive women were gang raped. Babies were invariably killed.’

‘One by one, the children and young women were pegged out naked beside the camp fire,’ according to a contemporary account. ‘They were skinned, sliced, and horribly mutilated, and finally burned alive by vengeful women determined to wring the last shriek and convulsion from their agonized bodies. Matilda Lockhart’s six-year-old sister was among these unfortunates who died screaming under the high plains moon.’

Not only were the Comanche specialists in torture, they were also the most ferocious and successful warriors — indeed, they become known as ‘Lords of the Plains’. They were as imperialist and genocidal as the white settlers who eventually vanquished them.

When they first migrated to the great plains of the American South in the late 18th century from the Rocky Mountains, not only did they achieve dominance over the tribes there, they almost exterminated the Apache, among the greatest horse warriors in the world.

 

Arthur Grey Wolf Marshall rebelled against the racial homogenization of his family, and wanted to return to his Indian roots.  He wanted to take scalps, send the white man fleeing in terror, restore the indigenous greatness of his tribal nation, and let it be known that Indians would never forget Andrew Jackson and the great white push westward. 

 

He let his hair grow and thatched it into a ponytail fastened with ancient cowrie beads.  His dress, his mannerisms, and his speech became more and more Comanche.  Tall and imposing in his fine-tooled boots and white Stetson, he was an impressive figure, admired by many and sought out by school administrators who, in the spirit of inclusivity and diversity, encouraged him to preside over ceremonies, awards, and official events.  Grey Wolf Marshall became the go-to student leader, bound for Harvard and greater things beyond. 

Yet none of this took hold of the boy and in fact it rankled.  This coddling and liberal preferentiality was angering and petty.  He wanted to rediscover and resuscitate his true, warrior Indian spirit and not become some white boy's toy.  He wanted scalps!

Of course in this modern day and age, such barbarism was a thing of the past; but the spirit of brutal combat, absolute victors and bloodied losers was not.  America was still a Wild West nation, and although hatchets, spears, arrows, and carbines had disappeared, the will to dominate and eviscerate still remained, especially in the descendants of the great Comanche, Sioux, and Apache warriors of the plains. 

 

And so it was that Grey Wolf Marshall went to Washington.  Thanks to recommendations from his state representative and his express desire to lend whatever strategic insights he might give to the Administration, he was assigned to the Defense Department as an intern  in the office of the Under Secretary for Strategic Planning. 

The Undersecretary was indifferent at first - he had not asked for any novitiates, was quite busy with Iran and Ukraine, and gave the young man a more tepid welcome than he had expected.  Grey Wolf was bursting with ideas and hoped to be quickly immersed in warfare.  After all, he was not only a direct descendant of White Wolf, but more importantly he was the family historian.  He knew as much about White Wolf as anyone. 

The 'White Wolf Principle' as the young Marshall named it had been adopted by Sherman in the Civil War, marching marauding through Georgia and South Carolina in a scorched earth campaign not only designed to defeat the rebels, but to send an unmistakable lesson to the South - It shall never rise again. 

Sherman’s brutal marches from Tennessee to Atlanta, Atlanta to Savannah, and Savannah up through the Carolinas have been called ‘disproportionate’, but they were not.  There is no doubt that Sherman left a trail of ruin and desolation behind him; but he targeted the ‘plantationists’ – the wealthy landowners who led the South into war and who persisted in the fight at the expense of hundreds of thousands of young lives and the destruction of territory, culture, and history.

Sherman's march was itself inspired by the march of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was a charismatic and fearsome figure.  He and his armies were known for their cruelty and barbarity, and the sight of them advancing across the battlefield in a storm of dust, the earth shaking with the thunder of 50,000 hooves, was enough to send enemies into retreat. The thought alone of this terrible, bloodthirsty, and mighty warrior was enough to rout enemy armies. Genghis Khan was a man of absolute will and power, a frightening presence of power and vengeance.  He was a horseman of the Apocalypse.

There have been many successful armies in the world.  Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Agrippa were as brilliant generals as Genghis Khan, and brought Roman organization, discipline, and management to the battle.  They won because of superior ability, armaments, and military thinking; yet it was Genghis Khan who, with an almost untamed savagery, conquered the world.  At its height the Mongol Empire extended from far eastern China to the Danube, the biggest empire the world has ever seen. 

Genghis Khan was a brilliant strategist, canny politician who through tact, intimidation, and offers of great spoils, enticed the warlike Turkic tribes to join his armies, nearly doubling their strength.  However, it was not only the might of his imposing armies, nor his ability to manage, discipline, and control such a large and diverse military force; nor even his tactical acumen and understanding of calculated risk which assured victory.  It was his indomitable, absolute, unalloyed will. 

Khan had no qualms, moral reservations, or ethical hesitancy.  Wars were for winning, civilians were complicit enemies, and total annihilation of any opposition was his modus belli. Not only would defeated populations be without the wherewithal to mount a resistance or counterattack, they would never dare to incite the bloody, murderous, savage wrath of the conqueror.

In the modern day, Israel has followed in the footsteps of Genghis Khan, White Wolf, and Sherman.  Their single-minded, devastating attacks on Gaza were designed to destroy Hamas and leave no doubt in the Palestinian population what would happen if it were to rise again. 

It was not long before the Undersecretary understood what a treasure he had in the young Grey Wolf, a man of intelligence and insight who, above all, wanted to burnish the reputation of his ancestor who was the equal of Sherman and whose theories of a brutality-based military strategy had been proven over and over again.  

It was because the American military had turned soft, had become casualty-averse and civilian-friendly that it was no match for the Machiavellian forces in the world.  It was time to infuse the American military with the ethos of savagery, a win at all cost strategy guaranteed not to win the hearts and minds of civilians but to intimidate and humiliate them, and destroy their will.  

'Think Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki', Grey Wolf wrote in a briefing paper. 'When White Wolf and his braves entered the white settlement of Spring Forks, and massacred every man, woman, and child but not before raping and mutilating them, he was the forerunner of an armed force that burned thousands of civilians alive in massive aerial firebombing; and one who dropped the atom bomb on Japan's most populous cities.  Wars are for winning'.

At first the Undersecretary, no stranger to battle and recruited by the Administration exactly because of his battlefield experience, was taken by surprise.  Schooled as he had been in the genteel warfare of post-Vietnam, he was at first reluctant to consider the young Indian's premise; but the more he thought about it and put Pentagon strategy within the historical context suggested by Grey Wolf, the more it made sense.  Such a forceful strategy would save lives, for it would not only hasten the end of conflict, but assure that it would not occur again any time soon. 

'Think ISIS', the Comanche went on. 'While their hegemonic advances were antithetical to Western interests, one has to admire their resolve.  Savagery - let us call it by its name and not shy away from it - was effective.  ISIS was feared and obeyed.  The Viet Cong were no different, and anyone in villages with sympathy for the corrupt South Vietnamese regime and their American lackeys would be tortured into a painful, hideous death.

 

''The horror, the horror', said Joseph Conrad's Kurtz when the realized that the savagery of the cannibalistic African tribes into which he tried to assimilate was not restricted to them but was an indissoluble aspect of human nature.  Use it', wrote Grey Wolf. 'Use the horror.'

'War is a permanent feature of human life', he continued. 'An unextinguishable desire for conquest; but the more fearsome the adversary, the more brutal, bloody, and undaunted he is, the fewer wars he will have to fight'. 

Grey Wolf of course expected opposition to his ideas.  Wasn't America supposed to be a compassionate, considerate country spreading democracy and good will throughout the world? And wouldn't savagery completely destroy that image? 

'Yes', he replied, 'but empires are not led by lovers.'

Grey Wolf was happy to see the violent destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities, military infrastructure and the killing of key military and scientific personnel.  America and Israel were once again adhering to the principles of Sherman, Truman, Genghis Khan and his ancestor, White Wolf.  Decisive victory would now be predicated on an assumption of civilian complicity, and attacks on residential areas and cities at large would be a component of campaigns of total victory. 

Grey Wolf was proud of his Great Great Grandfather and was pleased to see him raised to the prominence he deserved as a true American hero; for what was more American that fighting for your people, for their sovereignty, for their identity, and their future?