QUOTES from Don Bendell

The following are taken from Don Bendell’s writings, speeches, and sayings and the quotes cover a wide range of topics from the Martial Arts and self defense, to personal growth and politics.

We are the “good guys” and must always be the “good guys,” but if we have to fight, we must be cunning, ruthless, and tougher than our enemy, and we should unleash such a force of firepower on enemy combatants that they die, and we do not, and the survivors soon surrender.

 Jesus was a man of contradictions. When preparing to travel through bandit-riddled countryside, He told His disciples, “Be sure to carry your swords.” He also turned over the tables in anger in the Temple, but on the other hand, told His followers to “Turn the other cheek.” We must be contradictory in our handling of a war, as well. Of all the figures in literature, God Himself was the most hardcore warrior of all when it came to handling the enemy. The other side of that coin, though is that “God is love.”

I pray each day for God to open doors very wide for me go through, and slam doors shut in my face where He does not want me to go. Then, I try to be patient and wait for God's answer, at his time, not mine.

If it was a good idea, you wouldn't be asking if it was.

Little successes in life lead to bigger successes.

It is more important to me for people to respect me than for them to like me….. I am a man of action. I know I am old fashioned and not very 21st century, and Oprah would probably be ashamed of me, but many things with me are black and white (except skin color): A man or woman is only as good as their word, period.

You cannot support troops when you publicly undermine their commander-in-chief. That is playing right into the divide and conquer hands of the enemy propaganda machine.

I am both a Republican and a Cowboy, with a real horse and real ranch.

My heroes have always been cowboys, and they still are today….now where have I heard that before?

If my neighbor is having his trash and property torn up, and children threatened, because a pack of wild dogs who descended from some dogs my father turned loose, decades ago, keeps attacking his family, there are two ways he can approach the problem. One, he could call me up and scream and yell about the dogs and how it is all my fault because of what my dad did and demand compensation. I would hang up on him, think he is a jerk, and do nothing to help him, as I would have no respect for him. His second choice would be to call me and say, "Hey man, have you heard about those wild dogs running around, that came from your dad's hunting dogs years ago? I need some help getting rid of them, man. Can you give me a hand?"

I'd be there in a New York minute, rifle in hand, and maybe another one for him to use. Chances are good, after we wiped out the wild dogs, I would offer him the second rifle as a gift, since my dad's mistake was the root cause of the problem.

Hero? I am just a guy who went and did my thing. The real heroes are buried in Arlington, stayed at home and took care of their families while their husbands, or wives, fought, or left pieces of their bodies over there.

Maybe it is because I am getting old, but to me, you prepare to defend yourself against any type of attack, anytime, anywhere, and you have the attitude that nobody in the world can defeat you, but you do not then go out and slap people to see what they've got. You play your cards close to the chest.

When I was a little boy, wearing my pair of six-shooter cap guns, and my black and white pinto Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit, I sat in wide-eyed wonder, especially on Saturday mornings, and watched Joey and his horse Fury; Roy Rogers and his golden palomino Trigger….I had no Square Pants or Sponge Bob, Michael Jackson, Peewee Herman, or Barney the Dinosaur to aspire to. I had heroes who were corny, idealistic, jingoistic, and each had a clear cut set of values and morals, which they adhered to. You knew where you stood with John Wayne’s characters, as well Marshal Matt Dillon, Pa Cartwright, Cheyenne Bodie, or the Lawman, Marshal Dan Troop….

We are ready, and America is definitely ready, for us to take a two-hour (western movie) vacation away from the War on Terrorism, bitchy neighbor, tyrannical boss, and those ever-present, always-favorite creditors. We can take time away from beheadings being sensationalized on TV, angry politicians cutting our nation’s legs out from under us….(instead) We can watch our cowboy hero punch out the big nasty bully who picked on the little old lady in the mercantile, and only dream about doing that to the bank vice-president who grabbed our wife’s bottom at work in the copy room, without worrying about the ensuing litigation. We can watch our hero kill the deserving nasty bad guy in a stand-up, man-to-man shootout, after we have heard about the latest pedophile serial killer plea-bargaining his way to a life sentence with possibility of parole. And maybe more importantly, we see our cowboy hero hold a chair for a woman in a restaurant, and she doesn’t think he looks down at her but is simply courteous, or we see him, or her, give their word, then go through a range war, a bullet through the shoulder, and a blistering death march, sans horse, across Death Valley all to simply keep their word, and that sticks in our brain and our character.

Kids, and adults today, need those heroes. That is why I created Chris Colt and the other characters in my westerns. Westerns got too gritty, too realistic, and those movies and TV shows died, but are now being resurrected. If the moral fabric of a hero on screen is so solid, that they are deemed “unrealistic,” so much the better, for it gives the viewer, especially children, a lofty ideal to which to aspire. 

"Experience is a nasty taskmaster sometimes, oft-times actually. It would be so nice if every day was sunny and warm, with no showers, clouds, winds, or blizzards. I sure would feel comfortable. Of course, we would live in the Sahara, if that were the case, but it would be warm and bright outside."

"Do not baby someone who is acting weak, for that is the thing that will kill them."

"Medals don't make a man. Morals do."

"Have you ever seen a Brinks truck follow a hearse to a cemetery?"

"When some members of some Plains Indian nations accomplished a feat of bravery, this was called counting "coups" (coo), and they were awarded an eagle feather. You have seen great chiefs with big war bonnets with many eagle feathers, but what you don't see, under the buckskins, is that they also have many more scars than the others."

“We must be Americans first, and think about our political parties after that.”

“I urge you to start practicing ‘random acts of kindness’ wherever you go. Even using ‘tough love’ can sometimes be one of the kindest things you ever do for a person.”

“When we get big hurts in life, we eventually gird ourselves in a self-created coat of ‘Armor All Protectant.’ To some degree, it protects us temporarily from further hurt, but the really sad and bad part about us is that it also blocks love from getting in.

“ ‘Armor All Protectant’ is just as it name suggests, and is quite easy to apply. Much harder to remove. It simply takes a lot of emotional elbow grease, but first, a real desire to actually remove the armor coating. Sometimes, we just say we want to but not really. We actually want to be able to want to, but we haven't figured out how to be able to want to first. The answer is quite simple to say but hard to apply: Courage. It's a lot easier just to go about living. What most people do. By the way, most people are really screwed up inside.”

"That is the really cool thing about working hard at maintaining integrity in the martial arts. I tell kids integrity is when you do the right thing when mom and dad are not around to watch you. If I always remain consistent in my basic character, people can test me and I will always pass. People who do not, who compromise their principles, must always be on guard or will be found out."

 "If you want to be an author, develop a thick skin."

"My sense of humor and God have kept my sanity and protected me from death on a number of occasions."

"God does NOT close a door without opening another one to nicer room."

“Like the Kama Sutra, Senator, you change positions constantly. … You flip-flop more than a beached tuna on steroids.”

“Thank you, John Kerry, for helping make us Vietnam veterans war heroes now, but you also were the primary reason that the American public grabbed sturdy unbending brooms of judgment and swept us into the closet of silence and shame for so many years. Now, with your latest unreported insanity, you are getting ready for our society to grab those same stiff brooms and sweep our brave, noble young men and women fighting against the War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, into that cold, dark cell of heartbreak and betrayal, like we Vietnam veterans had to endure in silent dignity. I cannot and will not watch this country go through that again.”

"When we confront big fear monsters, they usually shrink down to the size of normal pests, and finally we exterminate them."

 "Remember, what happens to us in life is basically inconsequential. What is of great import is how we "react" to what happens to us."

"The short term goal chase is the basic human experience....... One of the big reasons twelve step programs, such as AA, work is learning to take things a day at a time, sometimes even an hour at a time. When we try to focus on the long range, it becomes too great a challenge. When I climb ridges or mountains, I never think about reaching the peak, or I would give up halfway up. I look above me and spot a tree or rock outcropping and pick that out as my goal to reach, and decide I will climb to it before I decide to give up and go back down. Then I rest there and pick out another spot above me and climb to it. Pretty soon, I am saying I have climbed too high to give up now and go back down. Before long, I am on top of the peak, looking down with a self-satisfied smile on my face and my shoulders back a little more than normal and my heaving chest puffing out a bit."

"Before 9-11, we who taught self-defense were teaching students to primarily guard against bullies, rapists, or muggers. Now, we must prepare our students against an enemy, which is often invisible until it is the time to strike. They don't want our wallet. They want to strike terror in our hearts, take away our way of lives, and steal our souls."

"Facing an attacker with a weapon is like sleeping with a grizzly bear:  Although it can be a unique and different experience, it is nonetheless, a bit unsettling.”

"When you hand a young Green Beret a bayonet and tell him to stab you with it, you better not be a phony."

"When attacked with a weapon, you must use anything at hand as a weapon to even out the odds, and your attitude must be one of victory, period. Either, the attacker, or the defender is going to get hurt and become a victim at the end of a weapon's attack. My attitude must be that the attacker will be the victim.”

"If you are a true warrior, and you are really capable, you can appreciate all the love and beauty life has to offer; then you do not need to strut and speak and scowl at everybody like they are your enemy or advertise with symbols about how big and bad you are."

“Our tongues can control the mood of the karate schools. We can make others envious, jealous, or even downright angry with idle gossip, or we can make others in the school happy, enthusiastic, and motivated….That can all simply be accomplished with our words. What a responsibility we all bear. And that decision is ours to make, every single day.”

 

Don Bendell's CODE OF THE WEST:

·      Cowboys should treat women like ladies, period.

·      Cowboys fight fair, and only when they have to, and when they do have to fight, they win, period.

·      You know exactly where you stand with a cowboy. There are no gray areas, only black and white, but not when it comes to skin color.

·      A cowboy is only as good as his word.

·      A cowboy protects his family, spread, and community.

·      A cowboy will fight for, and take care of orphans, widows, and those who are oppressed.

·      A cowboy will go out of his way to avoid a fight and is always willing to share his grub, campfire, and water with ya.’

·      And finally; A cowboy believes in his God, and he believes in America and will fight and die to protect either.