 We live in a time where we use the word amateur as a term of derision. However, I would like to call you to be an amateur warrior. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're going to talk about being an amateur. I recently took a class where someone brought this up about being an amateur warrior and what that really means and I've been thinking about it since then and I thought it was interesting. And usually we use the word amateur in modern English to mean someone who's a hack, right? Someone who lacks skill or proficiency in a certain thing, right? Oh, they're just an amateur. However, the etymology of the word is actually kind of interesting. The first definition of the word amateur is actually one who engages in pursuit in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than a profession. And when you look at the etymology of the word, like I said, the earliest sense of amateur is quote, one that has a market fondness, liking, or taste. And it's strongly connected to the French word, I'm going to butcher this, I'm assuming it's amateur or amateur. And it comes from the Latin word lover, meaning like one who loves something, one who does something for the pleasure of it. And so I thought that that was a really interesting kind of old use of the word amateur, that we are do something for the love of it, you do it because you want to, you do something because you love it, not because you're paid to do it, but because you genuinely enjoy it. And America has a long, long history of amateur warriorship. The first kind of militia at the Massachusetts Bay Colony started in 1636. That's almost 150 years before the founding of this nation. But that was kind of the first American amateur warriorship. And I don't mean that to take away anything from our professional warriors and people who do it full time. And that's all well and good. And if you're out there honoring your oath to serve the Constitution, thank you. We appreciate that. That's fantastic. But for the rest of us, for us every day Americans, being an amateur warrior is something to aspire to. One, it's a long tradition, it predates our professional warriorship in this country. Originally, the founding fathers did not envision America with a standing army, right? We did not have a standing army because standing armies are dangerous to liberty. That's a different discussion, different video. However, that was the, that was the vision for America. We're going to have a group of amateur warriors. It's one of the reasons the Second Amendment exists, because we're going to have these people who are going to be able to fight wars and we're going to be in a militia and we'll go and we'll do the fighting thing and then we'll come back home and live our lives. Very much kind of a, basically the system, the way the way wars have been fought primarily throughout history since ever, right? In history you have very, very small professional armies usually and then they bulk up at wartime with conscription and other, other things. But to have a dedicated people, the American men, who are going to be committed to being in the militia and owning their arms and being proficient in those arms and being proficient in other things like tactics and land nav and other skills that you need to do war fighting but amateur warriors, a nation of amateur warriors. And I would encourage you to embrace that tradition. Don't, don't think that being an amateur warrior is somehow lesser than or somehow not valuable or you're just larping or whatever and hey if you want to larp there's nothing wrong with that. But being an amateur warrior is, is an honorable calling. It's something that we should aspire to. It's not something to be ashamed of or sad of or whatever but rather I think it's something that we should embrace as, again, our American militant heritage. There is nothing wrong with embracing your American martial heritage. And when you embrace that American martial tradition, I think it's important to know that it goes all the way back. It goes all the way back to 1636. These days the US National Guard claims that as kind of their founding because they're the militia or whatever. I'm going to go ahead and just ignore all that. I don't think that's true. It's a different video. But I would just like you as an everyday American guy who practices, who tries to do his dry fire, who tries to take a class a year or whatever and wants to embrace that heritage and maybe has a couple guys that he's able to practice some fire maneuver stuff with and whatever. That's honorable. That's a good thing. Keep doing what you're doing. We need more amateur warriors in America and the more we have, the more people who love liberty, who embrace that martial heritage, the better off we are going to be as a nation. Embracing your American martial heritage is a good thing. And I would encourage you to do that and not to be discouraged by the use of the word amateur. I would like to make a side note here that look, the longer you practice it, the better you're going to be at it, right? And the reason professionals tend to outclass amateurs in sports competitions, for example, is because professionals have more dedicated time in practice. That's just the way it is. The more you practice something, the better you're going to be, which means if as an amateur warrior you should do your dry fire, practice a lot, get good at stuff like that, take classes, that's how we become proficient. But knowing that that's not our full time deal and that we're dads and we work jobs and we do all this other stuff in life. And yes, there's a section of our life that we devote to being an amateur warrior. I don't want you again to feel like there's less honor in that or less class in that because we should all aspire to be amateur warriors because we love embracing our martial American heritage and because we are ready still to this day to take up arms in defense of our nation and our constitution and our liberties. Something to think about. Do brave deeds and endure.