> The narrative men have been told for far too long is that we had better die on our white horse than fall off it. We hear this from other men, and perhaps even more aggressively at times by women. The phrase “Either with this, or on it” was told to young warriors by Spartan women. The story we hear these days is that failure is unacceptable. Pursue status at work and build your way to the top. Fight and claw your way to earn that paycheck, girlfriend, status, career and success.

and

> I believe that people will hate me and they’d rather see me dead and wounded than fail. And in some cases it’s true. Our girlfriends and spouses often crave security within a relationship and when we can’t provide that it can affect their outlook on us.

Make it seem that the strongest gender policing does not come from other males, but from females. That would not surprise me in the slightest, given the behavior of females shaming males to die and do stupid things (cf. white feather campaign).

Especially given the guy who wrote this said flat out his sergeant didn’t bully or wasn’t mean to him, but goaded him back into the battlefield (was the writer/OP enlisted or an officer?)