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THE STORY OF HELAMAN and his stripling warriors is well known to students of the Book of Mormon. In brief, around 75 B.C. the people of Ammon, who originally were Lamanites, converted to the Lord and went to live among the Nephites. They swore an oath to never again use weapons for the shedding of man's blood (Alma 24:17-19). When the Lamanites later engaged in a recurring war with the Nephites, the Ammonites wanted to help defend their adopted country, but were persuaded by Helaman not to break their pacifist covenant. Instead, they sent their male offspring, who had not entered into the non-aggression pact, to battle. These two thousand sons of Helaman are described as "all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity" (Alma 53:20). Later they are described as "stripling warriors" (Alma 53:22) and "stripling Ammonites" (Alma 56:57).
Helaman's army eventually engaged a Lamanite force, and after a bitter struggle prevailed. He then took stock of his casualties and discovered unexpected good fortune: "And it came to pass that there were two hundred, out of my two thousand and sixty, who had fainted because of the loss of blood; nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonishment, and also the foes of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds. And now, their preservation was astonishing to our whole army, yea, that they should be spared while there was [sic] a thousand of our brethren who were slain." (Alma 57:25-26)
In Joseph Smith's time, Webster's (1828) dictionary defined "stripling" as "a youth in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad." The chronology of the Book of Alma suggests a period of fifteen to thirty years between the oath-taking of the senior Ammonites and the military exploits of their sons. These soldiers may have ranged in age from their mid-teens to early twenties, although most societies would consider a male in his twenties as fully grown. Present- day Mormon conceptions of the stripling warriors have been partially influenced by the Arnold Frieberg painting, which shows...