Formerly, a soldier was a man of daring and adventure, brave and
audacious, preferring an irregular life to the narrowing restraints of
civil existence.
The old time soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without
fear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies
that he masters the laws of chance.
Valour, recklessness, together with a certain rough eloquence, a certain
itch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were
pay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was
filled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he
roamed through unknown lands.
Until a few years ago, the soldier might have been summed up in three
words: he was brave, ignorant and adventurous.
The warrior of this school passed out of Europe about the middle of the
19th Century. He became extinct in Spain at the conclusion of our Second
Civil War.
Since that day there has been a fundamental change in the life of the
soldier.
War has taken on greater magnitude, while the soldier has become more
refined, and it is not to be denied that both war and the fighting man
are losing their traditional prestige.