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Excerpt from 'Gates of Fire', a book about the 300 at Thermopylae
"When a Warrior fights, not for himself, but for his brothers,
when his most passionately sought goal is neither his own
life's preservation, but to spend his substance for them,
his comrades, not to abandon them, not to prove unworthy
of them, then his heart truly has achieved contempt for death,
and with that he transcends himself and his actions touch
the sublime."
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"I say to you now only what I would say to my own men, knowing the fear that stands unspoken in each heart - not of death, but worse, of faltering or failing, of somehow proving unworthy in this, the ultimate hour. Forget every concept, however noble, that you imagine you fight for here today. Act for this alone: for the man who stands at your shoulder." -Dienekes 'Gates of Fire'
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