Means for the good of nation above personal life, liberty, and pursuit of freedom. A patriot must have duty and conviction and pursue the cause when it’s just.
A patriot must know their place in history and be prepared when the fight comes to their doorstep. However, there is the fight for oneself and community to survive against a menace, and it is not really about patriotism. Everyone living has the right to defend themselves, just as they have the right to sacrifice their life for another or a cause.
Depending on your time, place, and circumstance. The fight to survive can be a calling to become a patriot if your struggle for freedom or existence leads you become a soldier in a justifiable war, although I do not think you have to be a soldier to be a patriot. Albeit, it makes the pathway to such a cause more straightforward.
Opinions also differ based on experience. I doubt my hero Teddy Roosevelt would agree with my non-warrior path to patriotism, but I also think he might come to understand that I share his patriotism too. That is not to say I wouldn’t be a bit ashamed as well though, for I have always been close to the military and soldiers and I am often envious of their missions.
Certainly it would be simpler if every solution to a high stakes disagreement between countries could be measured with marksmanship but that would mean Jesus, Gandhi, Malcom X, Dr. King were not successful in their tactics to help their people, and they just needed bullets, and we know that is counter factual.
Lastly, I don’t know if this instinct stems from patriotism or just an old fashion dislike for bullies, but there is fighting spark in me that cannot align myself with any country, leader, or idea that tries to punch down and capitalize on another’s misery, and when it’s my country doing this it makes me want stop the bullying all the more.
This can even interfere with my patriotism in a way. Fortunately though, when it comes to my own country, I also have enough perspective of the battlefield for every skirmish line there are five more flanking opportunities — living and deceased that I can draw conviction from to push through to still achieve my Whiskey Delta patriotic victory.