Achilles' Heel

An Achilles' Heel is an idiomatic phrase which means something's biggest weakness. It is named for the legendary Greek hero Achilles, whose biggest weakness was his heel, and indeed was the source of his fabled demise during the Trojan War.

When involved in operations, knowing the Achilles' Heel of not only your enemy, but yourself as well, is one of the keys to success on the field.

The story of the life and death of Achilles varies from account to account (as things from Ancient Greece do) but the core of the story is this:

1. Achilles was dipped in the River Styx as a child by his mother, granting him perfect invulnerability everywhere (except for the one spot on his heel covered by his mother's hand when she dipped him in the river).
2. Despite this weakness, the near-invincible Achilles went to War and killed a LOT of people.
3. Towards the end of the Trojan War, Paris of Troy shoots Achilles in the heel with a poisoned arrow.
4. Achilles dies, and his kill streak ends.

The historical Achilles was likely a skilled Aeolian Greek warrior. This man was likely not supernaturally invulnerable at all, but nevertheless he succeeded in combat for a long time with normal human limitations. Achilles clearly had a reputation, which became the fuel for this legend. The tragedy here is that a violent state-sponsored mystery cult erased this man's already-epic story in favor of a conspiracy involving a haunted river, depriving us of valuable historical field data.

The most important thing to know about warfare, is that everything has an Achilles' Heel, and everyone is looking for everyone else's Achilles' Heel.

This means you will need to keep track of a myriad of Heels for both defensive AND offensive operations.

There are many places around you that a traitorous Achilles Heel can hide itself. They include:

Are your blades sharpened? Are your batteries charged? Are you still running that one battery that barely holds a charge? Do you have combat-ready ammo, or do you have low-grain bullshit plinking ammo? When is the last time you cleaned and oiled your gun? And speaking of oil, when is the last time you changed the oil in your car? How bald are your tires? Have you not been maintaining your things in general? Are you dependent on unstable supply chains for your things?

Do you have unsustainable habits or addictions? Do you act impulsively? Do you get aggressive and/or dangerous when you get impulsive? Do you unintentionally sabotage friendships and relationships? Do you find yourself oftentimes swept away by weird nonsensical political theater? Do you constantly feel like you are always pushing a boulder uphill? Do you intentionally pick fights with strangers on the internet?

This is one of the trickiest ones to keep in mind, but your inner circle has the keys to whatever kingdom you have, and in many cases they even have the keys to your own soul. If you get real deep into certain operations, they all may very well be targeted by wingnuts.

This does not mean obsessively spy on your friends, however, because it is not only creepy, but creates an even wider security liability than the one they may already present. If you feel you may have to do something like say, lie in court to protect them, then it is better off for both of you if do not dig into that aspect of their life any further. But be honest with yourself about who you let into your life, especially if they are regularly pushing you into conflicts with other people, have serious dependency issues, or are constantly making you feel negative. That saying about how “you become the company you keep” has a lot of truth in it.

Many of the great battles in history were because one side leveraged the other side's Achilles' Heel. Some examples of this are:

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The large and prominent tendon of the gastrocnemius, soleus, and plantaris muscles of the calf is called the Tendo Achilleus or Achilles' Tendon, because is commonly associated with the site of Achilles' death wound.

The oldest-known written record of the Achilles' Tendon being named after Achilles is in 1693 by the Flemish/Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen. In his widely used text Corporis Humani Anatomia he described the tendon's location and said that it was commonly called “the cord of Achilles.”