Somewhere around 850 BCE, Trojan and Greek armies had been engaged in warfare for a long time, maybe 10 years. Whatever the length, both armies were worn completely down. Death tolls were high. Important people had been slain. The war seemed like it would only end with the death of the last warrior in the siege. Then, the Greeks did the unthinkable – they offered a peace offering to the Trojans, a gift for being such a formidable foe, loaded their boats for Greece and withdrew from the harbor in front of Troy.
Oh, but that isn’t the end of the story. Literate people know the phrase, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The Trojan horse that had been given to the town as a gift was a ruse. It contained soldiers, who would wait until nightfall to leave the horse, open the gates, and let in the Greek army whose ships had returned to the bay and unloaded for the final assault. It’s a well known ploy. The Iliad just made the trickery famous.
War is good only if you win it. I have been engaged in wars with co-workers before and in larger office politics as well. The one event that wins it every time is the ruse that is created. Some people play by the adage that luck is always better than preparation. Thus, if they win a war, “There’s nothing like dumb luck,” they say. But I want to weigh in on the side of another saying, “There’s no substitute for preparation.” And that preparation is the ruse that makes the enemy feel confident of a winning outcome when really they are about to be brought down to deafening defeat because they have unwittingly exposed their fatal flaws to the opponent.
Fight well, my kindred spirit!
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