Angry Planet - This Is (Not) Sparta!

Episode Date: February 9, 2019

When you hear the word Sparta, there’s an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek City States, it’s the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors and their society was geared almost entirely toward training for war. For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration from Sparta.Much of the romance around Sparta centers Around the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, where the Persian Empire crushed a small and ill-equipped collection of elite soldiers. Since then, historians, propagandists, Hollywood, and the American military have turned Sparta’s epic defeat at the gates of fire into a myth of slavery vs freedom, east vs west, and democracy vs despotism. But the thing is … a lot of what hear about the Spartans is bullshit, the truth is more complicated.Here to help us unpack modern day mythos around Sparta is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Chair of Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of The Warrior, Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare: Achilles Goes Asymmetrical.Disclaimer: Pauline Kaurin's opinions are her own and do not reflect the opinions or policy of the US Naval War College.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. We think about maybe the Spartan values as a shot in the arm or as an augment to military professionalism, I think it can be really useful. If it replaces that. becomes a rival for that, then I think that's where, that's where we might have concerns. So they're just walking around in downtown Fayetteville towards a movie theater to go see 300. And like nothing but like a loincloth, a shield they made at a cardboard and some helmet that they ordered from the, from the internet. And it just kind of blew up after that. It was like, you know, just a bunch of young military age males going to see this movie and

then coming out feeling, feeling like, I can do this. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to War College. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Derek Cannon. When you hear the word Sparta, there's an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek city states, it's the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors, and their society was geared almost entirely towards training for war.

For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration. from Sparta. Much of the romance around it centers around the Battle of Thermopyla, where the Persian Empire crushed a small and ill-equipped collection of elite soldiers. Since then, historians, Hollywood, and the American military have turned Sparta's epic defeat at the gates of fire into a myth of slavery versus freedom, east versus west, and democracy versus despotism. But the thing is, a lot of what you hear about the Spartans is bullshit. The truth is more complicated. Here to help us unpack the modern day mythos around Sparta is Pauline Corrin. Corinne is the chair of military ethics at the U.S. Naval War College and the author of The Warrior,

Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare. Achilles goes asymmetrical. Pauline, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. All right, this is going to be more of a roundtable episode, because I know Derek has quite a bit to say about this, because he's experienced a lot of it firsthand, this Spartan culture. And also our producer, Kevin Nodell is here, and he's going to be speaking to it quite a bit because as a military journalist himself, he has also got a lot of firsthand experience with this. All right. So I want to start a little unconventionally. Derek, you're a former operator. Kevin, you spend a lot of time with service members. You're both steeped in this military culture. What's the deal with the Spartist stuff? Derek, what did you see when you were in? How pervasive is it? It's pretty, there's, it's, it's a lot of units are.

even just, it's pretty pervasive, actually. I was going to try to church it up, but there's a lot of Spartan helmets and a lot of, you know, Spartan battle cries, especially when I was in and I was younger. It's just, it's just, they're, everyone's really into it. They're like, you know, we're super elite Spartans, you know, holding back the hordes of the Islamic or other evils that are that are headed towards the gates of New York. Or what I just, it's just this huge giant, steeping pile of manliness, romanticist sized shields of the bygone era of Greek and Roman mythology. It's super weird to me. There, there I said it. It's very weird. But it's motivational. It really is. I mean, it's super

motivational. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. I had a Legion patch on my armor, and I thought it was cool. But you really don't know anything about it. You're like, yeah, you know, we're Spartans. We're holding back the hordes of evil kind of thing. And they just kind of cap. capitalize on that, but you don't really know anything else about it. They just know that they had cool helmets and they didn't survive basically. They just got slaughtered. But yeah, I've I've seen a lot of the same sort of things. It's also just all over t-shirts. People kind of recount this as just a core part of it. Like it's the ultimate warrior archetype and everybody seems to want to emulate it. Everybody reads books about the Spartans. You see a lot of Spartan tattoos. some of my personal experiences we might get into a little bit later, but yeah, I can just reiterate everything Derek said there. I mean, Matt, if you, if, let me, let me clarify what I was trying to say. It's like, Kevin's right.

There's a lot of tattoos. It's, think about it like this. There's, you got guys in the military and that's their, you know, their, they're, it's like their high school, you know, mascot. I don't want to say, it's like a high school or a college mascot. When they go in the military, it's like, hey, hi, you are one of the, you know, you're a legionaire or you're a Spartite. And, you know, this is all this pride is around this specific symbol. It's a lot of symbolism.

And people get tattoos. You wear T-shirts of it. There's, you know, there's inner platoon or even even intercompany rivalries of who's more Spartan than the other, you know? And it's just like, do you know much about the Spartans? and, you know, throwing babies off clips and things like that. Like, that's not what we're trying to do. I want to go to Paul Ede now then, because I want to know exactly what are Spartan values, and why did this become a particular fascination for the American military?

I think that's a really good question. I mean, I think part of it is, you know, the Spartan values. I mean, I think the big thing Derek mentioned in terms of motivation is discipline. I mean, the Spartans were very disciplined. They trained from a very young age. Boys started when they were seven. They were separated from their mothers, and they were taken into this military training.

It's very tough, you know, difficult. There's a lot of deprivation, so there's a lot of focus on physical strength, which I think maybe that's the part of the attraction. there. The elite piece is important too. There's a separation from society. So in Sparta, the Warriors were a separate class and intentionally separate and were elite in an eliteist kind way in the sense that they viewed themselves as better than the rest of the society. And I think in some ways the society viewed them that way as well.

There's also, I mean, it's a highly, it's a particular version of masculinity as well. So I wonder if that is part of the attraction. It's also, I think there's also an esprit decor and a very, it's a culturally a homogeneous group, right? It's not, it's not a bastion of multiculturalism. So I wonder if all of those things, I'm a little perplexed as to what the attraction is. I suspect it's the elite piece and that the discipline is something that's motivating to people and the sense of identity. I think for Spartan warriors, it wasn't something they did. It was something they were.

In fact, you know, I know you all know the film 300. There's a famous scene in there where that point is made over and against the Athenian. So there's an encounter with the Athenian group. and, you know, the king Leonidas, you know, sort of asks them, like, how many soldiers did you bring? And the point there is that all of the Spartans are soldiers. That's who they are. The Athenians are farmers and politicians and tradesmen. And they have these other occupations and they also fight.

But the Spartans are soldiers. That's who they are existentially. And so there's a difference between that kind of existential peace and being in the military as a job. And so I wonder if that also is part of the attraction, although that's really odd because American soldiers aren't warriors. I mean, they don't go into the military when they're seven and at some point you leave the military. So it's something that I find interesting and rather perplexing. something you just said I kind of want to drill in on. You said that they were viewed this way. They didn't, it wasn't just themselves that they kind of viewed this way. It was also the society at large.

And are you talking about Spartan society specifically or like Hellenic society at that time? Like did the other city states view them in the same way that they viewed themselves? In terms of their own society, I think, you know, the warrior class was definitely viewed as. elite and, you know, in the mode of protecting Sparta. So I think they viewed themselves that way. Certainly across the Hellenic world, there was a great deal of sort of disagreement. I mean, I think they were held in awe. I think they were viewed as, you know, formidable warriors. Plato, for example, doesn't have a lot nice to say about the Spartans. So actually, his republic and his discussion of his of his guardians is a direct critique of the Spartans.

So, and he's not the only one, right? You know, Aristotle has, in his discussion of courage, has some critiques as well. So I think there's more, there would be more variance, you know, outside of Sparta in terms of how Spartans were viewed. I think they were viewed as formidable warriors for sure, whether that was always seen as a good thing or not, I think is certainly up for dispute. I want to jump in here with something on that, actually.

One thing that I think is interesting about this and also that contrast that they like to draw between Spartans and the Athenians, is that when the city-states went to war with each other, it wasn't necessarily a given that the Spartans would win. In fact, the Athenians roundly defeated them on more than one occasion. Yeah, so maybe this is a matter of the reputation being more formidable than the actuality of it. Their most famous battle is a defeat. Right. So is, but the way it's framed now is that it's a sacrifice that allows the greater war to be won. And so is there a part of our military culture today that is kind of feeding into that, like feeding into the idea of

sacrifice? You know, I think that may be, I think that may be part of it. It may be that the military and Kevin and Derek can speak to this more than I can. It may be that the military feels that that's what they're being asked to do, right? That they're being asked for these profound sacrifices that maybe they think their own society doesn't appreciate or maybe isn't aware of. and that this is a narrative that allows people to make sense of what they're being asked to do and maybe motivates them and keeps them motivated. I mean, if you think about, you know, being in Afghanistan for 17 years, being in Iraq, being in other places, and it's not really clear that there's support on the home front or even knowledge on the home front about what's going on.

and that distance, that sense of disconnection that many vets, especially coming back, have a sense when they're reengaging with American society. So maybe that that kind of mythos or that mythology gives a sense of meaning and gives them a sense that this is what they're being asked to do, especially in a context where they may not feel like it's appreciated. But on the other hand, I think in American history, I think Kevin can speak to this better than I can, I think the discourse of the, you know, the small, you know, band of brothers, you know, fighting the tide of evil, that kind of good and bad dynamic. All of, you know, being the underdog and being outnumbered. I think all of those are themes that echo, at least, in our understanding of how. how we think about American history and the American experiment. So I think there are also sort of deep resonances that don't have to do with Spartan society, have to do with this idea of, you know, a small elite, a band that's facing overwhelming odds. It's Henry and his boys at Agincourt.

You know, it's the American, you know, revolutionist, you know, fighting the greatest empire of the day. So I wonder if it's some of that as well. I can answer from the elite side. Basically, what you just explained is literally what's pumped into us in special operations and special forces is that we're a small, highly trained, highly skilled group of individuals being asked to stem the tide, if you will, up into and giving our own life. And we do feel like the majority of our society to include the United States takes that for granted for us. It's this, we've romanticized the 300 sacrifice because of the movie specifically, because a lot of us learned about the gates of fire from the movie 300. I'm the first to tell you I had no idea of the story.

I knew of the graphic novel, but I didn't know it was an actual true story. But in the Green Berets, and I can tell you in the Rangers and the other special operations, is that we do feel that way. We feel very elitist also. You go through hell to get to the end to get a you know to be qualified to do these these clandestant You know special forces jobs and it's it's the same thing that if of what you said is like we feel that our life we are we are prepared to give our lives for our you know to for our empire you know the king the king has asked us to sacrifice ourselves to protect our home and and and you know families and women and children. And we, we feel like we're jumping into this breach willingly to do that. And it's, it's different. I mean, I know, I know when I was in the middle of this, when I was

in the height of my special forces, you know, career, we did look not so much down at regular army troops, but almost towards like a superior, we felt superior to them. Because it's the same thing that happened with the scene in 300 is like, how many warriors have you brought? Well, all of us are, that's our jobs. Because in Special Forces, specifically the Green Berets, you're a gunfighter first. That's what you do. You're a gunslinger first. Your secondary job, like for me, being a medic, that's your secondary job.

You fight first versus the regular military. It's like, okay, that's a pack clerk. That's a medic. He's a, you know, you understand there's different jobs and that's what they train specifically on to do. They're all, even in their combat arms, they have that. But it's that, and we do. We come home and we feel like, you know, I was prepared to give my life for you and for this country.

And you just kind of feel like this disconnect. And it also, there's, and especially for special operations guys coming out like I did, getting out, like you're no longer elite. And you spent so long feeling like you're this spartite, the chosen of the chosen to protect the empire.

And then all of a sudden, you're, you know, you're pumping your own gas and somebody's telling you, you know, you have to pay taxes and all these things. You know, you get my point.

It's like, you just draw the bottom kind of drops out it's so that's why they they romanticize that it's the discipline it's the this is what you train for every day your your job is a professional you're you're a professional warrior and that's i think that's why we we kind of cling to that 300 this is sparta you know masculine you know type of this is what you were bred to do you've been chosen right you know you go through the qualification courses of special operations you didn't get thrown off the you've been chosen to become a Spartan. And now then your training begins.

So it's kind of like I can see how that romanticized version of, you know, the Spartan ethos, being a Spartan, you know, being a Spartan itself has kind of really kind of dug its, claws into the fabric of special operations. I can totally see that. But it's kind of gotten out of control and it's bled out over to the regular units, like the 173rd, you know, third art. third ID, everyone's got some sort of amalgamation or derivation of the Spartan helmet and the Spartan ethos to include like, you know, Marine Special Operations and everything else like that.

So it's fascinating to hear this point of view from you because now I feel I was going to talk a lot of shit about it, but now I'm like, wow, she's actually talking about me. I feel really bad right now. You know, I'm like, yeah, okay. But that's my point with this. I can see why this is so deeply ingrained, specifically into the elite units of the United States military. I can see why. Because it clearly fills some kind of need, right?

Or it helps people make sense of their experience or it's motivating or it helps them understand who they are and what they're doing, right? You wouldn't, you know, these things don't evolve without some kind of reason behind them. Yeah, I agree. I mean, specifically when I was in, and fifth group, fifth group is called the fifth legion. So our, we, we kind of lean heavy onto the, the legion. We call each other legionaires, right? We're the, we're the V Legion or the Fifth Legion. And then there's, there's this, you know, specialized units within that Legion that consider themselves the, the, the Spartites or Praetorians, if you will, of the Legion. And we just go through this thing like, oh my God, you know, you're a direct action unit. You're a commanders and chief and extremist force. Well, you're a Pretorian.

You're a Spartan. You should wear the Pretorian shield on your armor. And you just slap it on there because it looks tough. You know, you're like, yeah, ha, ha, you know, I'm in Iraq and I got a spartite shield on my, you know, this motivational patch on your shield. And you're standing next to your, you know, regimental chaplain, which is hilarious. because on both sides of his helmet are a crusader shields. Like both sides of the chaplain's helmet had crusader patches on the side of them. And we're just, okay, we're getting way too into this, us versus them type of thing.

It's just like, you know. Let's talk about that a little bit. Because I think that there's an idea that maybe some of this is, especially for me, the civilian in the room, maybe a little creepy, maybe a little dangerous. I have thoughts on this specifically, and I'm not the first one to bring this up. But one of the things I think that's interesting about Sparta and some of the military people that I know of who like to promote Sparta talk about how the military is the chosen guardians of democracy. But Sparta itself was in many ways not particularly democratic. And sometimes the people who espoused this loudest, and I know some people in the special ops community who might not necessarily want to hear me say this. but they do kind of see themselves as being the ones who didn't get thrown off the mountain

and maybe everybody else should have been. Yep. Pause real quick. I want to make sure that the audience understands what we've referenced it a couple of times. What we mean when we say didn't get thrown off the mountain? We're talking about, in Spartan culture, I believe this is historically true too. Like if a baby was born with birth defects, it was getting hurled off the mountain, literally. They didn't actually literally get hurled off the mountain.

That's what happened. the movie. They would be left at the base of a mountain to see if they would die of exposure. And if they weren't, if they don't die of exposure, then they'll give them a second chance. But if they do, then they're just dead. They weren't good enough to be a Spartan. Okay, I'm sorry. Thank you for just clarifying that. Please continue. I don't throw you off. Oh, no, not too badly. But I mean, we were kind of getting to the end of my point there. I think there is a feeling, and this is not special operation centric either. This is a feeling that I think his permeated aspects of our all-volunteer force,

wherein veterans, some veterans, when they get home, genuinely feel that they are better and more important than the society that they serve, and that perhaps the society should be serving them and not the other way around. And I'd definitely love to hear what Pauline and Derek have to say about that. I would agree with that. Actually, I have a chapter in my next book, which is on obedience about what I call military veteran exceptionalism, and it's precisely kind of that response. And it is, you know, I would say it's not everyone, but it is some veterans.

And I think that, you know, when you're steeped in that kind of elitism, I mean, I think it's a small step from we're elite and awesome and trained and whatever else. The small step then to look back at your society and say members of my society are not. And therefore, that makes me better or that makes us better. And really, do they deserve our protection? I mean, what have they done, especially for some people coming back, the apathy or the disengagement of civilians like myself, I think people find that really disorienting. I mean, Sebastian Youngers, you know, the tribe is a great book. It sort of talks about that experience.

So I think that military civilian disconnect, you know, I think it's always been there to some degree, but I think you could argue it's gotten worse in some ways. And if you add the elitism and the worship of this sort of Spartan culture, which is really not, I mean, Kevin's right. Sparta was not a democracy. They had a very different civilian military relationship, you know, than we do. In our system, the military works for the civilians, their servants, caretakers of the state, I would say, you know, stewards in a certain way. but that's a different kind of relationship.

Servants aren't above the people that they're serving. And so when that shift happens and people start to think of themselves as above the people that they were there to serve, then I think it can be very dangerous. And I think people, there are a lot of commentators on civilian military relations who, I mean, Tom Ricks pointed this out 20, 30 years ago and making the core this dynamic, this is the same dynamic that in other nations has led to military coups, which is not to say that will happen in this country, but that's why people are concerned about, you know, this elitism, the gap, and sort of what it means for civilian military relations,

both for sort of active duty, but then what happens when veterans leave the service? And now you see people very active on social media, and people have sort of found a sense, I think, of that continuing community. It used to be when you got out of the service, I mean, you might keep in contact with a few close friends, but that sort of sustaining that connection was more limited to your veteran association or when you got together for reunions.

And now with social media, it can be maintained sort of 24-7. Absolutely. The VetBro movement is probably single-handedly one of the worst things to happen to the veteran community. It absolutely is the most, it's absolutely terrible. Because, Pauline, you're absolutely right. When you get out of the military, if we didn't have social media, you wouldn't have the vet-brough movement. You wouldn't have guys wearing Moulon LaBah, oh my God, Mulan LaBe everything.

And I, you know, I am the storm stand behind me T-shirts or I'm a dysfunctional veteran because that social media has perpetuated this. And then in fact, it's kind of driven the military, the veteran civilian, you know, kind of integration. It's just divided it even further. I'll give you an example. I'm old, right? I'm an older guy.

And I think when, when I remember when 300 came out and a lot of the elite or more tier one units that we were affiliated with and actually did work with, started adopting Mulan Lobby. I, Derek, I'm sorry to cut you off. I want you to tell the audience what that means, but first, I want to take a break real quick so we can listen to some advertisements. You're listening to War College. We'll be just a minute.

We'll be right back. All right, thank you for listening to War College. Welcome back. Derek, you were about to tell us what Mulan LaBea means. Well, what Mulan LaBea means is in... in general means come and take it, right? And they were talking about their lives. They were talking, come and, if you're so, it was almost like a, you know, Moulin Labe, come and take it. Like, you want this patch of dirt, come and get it. Because we were, we were fighting in Iraq. And Moulon Labe,

and I remember having in 2005, my first deployment to Iraq, you know, we, a lot of us were given these tabs that said Moulon Labe and I absolutely loved it. Because as a younger barrel chest, self-ascribed, mind you, barrel-tested freedom fighter. I'm like, yeah, totally, right? I'm going to throw this on there. I'm just, it's more, I felt more of like it was a psychological value. And then I came home and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the second amendment people started taking it and just perverted it to something else. And it's just like, nope, and just took it off my armor because now it's become a politicized thing.

And that's because this, we, in the early 2000s and mid, early to mid-2000s, we were trying to romanticize the war. And it became hyper focus because it felt like every three weeks a Navy SEAL book was coming out. So everyone was like, oh my God, these guys are the elite. These guys are our Spartans. Look at this. And then the T-shirt companies and then the coffee companies and the T-C companies and the finger widget company. Everything was, you know, special ops, you know, coffee or whatever it was. And it's just turned into this like capitalist money grab.

And it's affected a lot of guys getting out. You mentioned Sebastian Unger's book. That is a great book. I think it should be required reading for anyone separating from the military because we are desperately looking for a tribe. And if you find it on social media and you're mentally just not understanding how to transition into the civilian world, there's a lot of people that will tell you like, look, you don't have to. You fought for this country. They should be, and I'm going to use, they should be kissing our ass type of thing and people will. there's oh my god you serve this country but the minute i saw some coast guard reservists and i'm not okay i love you guys

i love you i know you didn't get paid thank you for working without money but the minute i see a coast guard reservist running around with a you know multi-cam hat that says come and take it it kind of devalue again in pauling you mentioned this it kind of devalues the feeling that that elite that elite that elite that you have like why does he have that i'm i'm a green beret he i'm elite he just rise around on the boat kind of thing. It's just kind of that, it's that mill vet bro, you know, movement that's really, has really kind of started eating this. And they only just take portions of the meal. They don't take it all. Like, you know, Spart was the greatest place ever. That's all it was warriors and, and extremely attractive women with, like, grotesque men, name the oracle with, you know,

gorgeous women dancing around them. It's just, it's not how American society is set up at all. It isn't at all. Like, you, you come out. thinking that you're you know you're this elite warrior and it's somebody at 7-11 tells you to move your truck you're like oh okay I guess I'm not elite you know no one's no one's bending the knee for me and it's that's why the milvet bro movement is so toxic I think to the veteran community and it's it's steeped in this it's steeped in this weird elitist you know kind of Spartan kind of mentality that's my feeling I mean it's my opinion I don't really know if it's true or not I mean, I think this starts even earlier than when people separate, though, too.

I remember a commissioning ceremony at PLU, my alma mater that I was going to go see, seeing a bunch of young cadets who were becoming second lieutenants. And I remember the colonel, who I'm not going to use his name. I've got mixed feelings about him. Not all negative. Pauline knows who it is. But he expounded upon and was telling these young officers that they are the modern-day Spartans and kept saying that. You know, you are the modern-day Spartans.

You represent the best of the society. You are the best Americans. And when he kept saying you were the modern-day Spartans, I remember just looking at them and thinking, God, I hope not. And why is that, Kevin? What is it that you were reacting to? Well, I just, I think, I'm concerned about everything that Derek was just talking about there. And what I kind of touched on earlier, which is our military becoming more and more separated from the society it serves and becoming a separate society within a society. That concerns me.

It seems like this specific myth is less dangerous than the way it's being deployed then. It's kind of the gist I'm getting from the conversation. I mean, all myths are separated from actual history, but I mean, Spartan society functioned because you had an underclass the hellots who are essentially slaves, right? So, you know, Sparta is not a democratic republic. They don't have civilian control of the military. So I think mythology and a mythos can be useful, but I think it can also, you can push it too far. I mean, at the end of the day, members of the military, even elite members of the military, are still, you know, bound by the norms and values of a professional military. There's military professionalism. There are norms and values that come from that community. Sparta does not define military professionalism. So, you know, as a professor of military ethics, that's, I think, along with the Siv-Mil, gap, that's also my concern is that you're sort of substituting another normative structure for one that's already there.

There is a normative structure that tells you who you are, what your obligations are, you take oaths of office, you know, there's a way in which we think about our military and there are moral obligations our military has that, true, other members of society don't have, but we have a way of thinking about that. It's called military professionalism. And so this sort of overlaying of the Spartan myth on top of that, I think that's also where it can become problematic because then it's replacing in many ways the other normative structure

of things like core values and the oaths that people take and all of those kinds of commitments. So I think, or they could have, at least come into competition with one another. Picking backing off of that, I also want to say something about history and context that I think is also particularly interesting when we think about Sparta. Just like with anything in antiquity, a lot of what we understand about it is our own best guests of history. This was a long time ago. And a lot of what we actually know about the Spartans, we get from the Athenians, because they were the ones who actually recorded history.

You know, they had art and science and they wrote things. Spartan society didn't really record their history. Most of what we have is secondhand because they apparently geared their society entirely toward war. They didn't really make a lot of advances in science or the arts or these other things that we associate with the other Greek city states, like the Thesbians. And a lot of those other city states were actually present at the Battle of Thermopyla, too. They fought there too and had that last stand. Sparta was not alone. It's interesting that we associate them being like the ultimate in terms of that.

But in many ways, they were a poorer society in those ways. And they often lost battles to their more well-rounded neighbors. And let me ask what may be a foolish question. How much of this myth-making do you all think comes down to a movie? that was released in 2006. I think it's a massive resurgence. I think that movie, I'll give you an example, okay? When that movie came out, I was at Fort Bragg.

Okay, and I was in, we were, I was in Special Forces at the time. I was at Fort Bragg. We're going through training. And the movie came out. And all of us were like, let's go. We're going to go see 300, uh-huh, uh-huh, kind of thing, right? And we all went, and we got to the movie theater. And I'm telling you right now, it was probably 99.

point nine percent white young white military age males right interspers persons of color but the majority it was young white military age males we all met as a group and two of the guys of the group decided to go in cosplay right spartans showing up in the helmets and of course these guys it was any excuse to take off their clothes because they're of course these dudes are according to them were just chiseled and abs galore and everything So they're just walking around in downtown Fayetteville towards a movie theater to go see 300. And like nothing but like a loincloth, a shield they made at a cardboard and some helmet that they ordered from the internet. And it just kind of blew up after that.

It was like, you know, just a bunch of young military-age males going to see this movie and then coming out feeling like I can do this. And it wasn't just S-F guys. It was everybody. It was, you know, everybody that was in and around Fort Bragg. And it was a very popular movie. me though I'm like I don't want to walk in with these dudes this is this is just not my scene I mean I'm all about it I I like Star Wars but I don't go to Star Wars movies dressed as Bulba fat do you know what I mean I just don't do that but that's just an example and I think

it after that that movie it became a deployment movie too like if you go down range there's always like 300 on a DVD and people are watching it and I will say this I think I think with all the with all the negatives that I feel that like that movie and the Spartan culture within the military or the Legion or the Roman culture, the, you know, the SPQR tattoos and everything. I think it, I think it adds value. I think it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a motivational patch. It, it, it, it's, it's, it's a mascot of sorts, you know, some of us don't go to college, but we're in the military and this, this, this, this is something that you will defend. This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this is something that you will defend. This

Spartan helmet, this image is you. That's who you are. And you kind of just cherry pick of what the, you know, the ethos of what you're talking about kind of comes out. You just kind of turn it into a manly, you know, elite masculine thing. And I'm saying masculine, not just specifically for men. I mean, women serve in units that are under the auspice of the Pretorians and legions and Spartans as well. I think it, but I do think that that movie just had a massive resurgence of the Spartan, you know, aura, if you will. I think that's true, but I know for a fact that it started even before that movie within professional circles,

because I think you can't understate Stephen Presfield's Gates of Fire, a book that's been on professional reading lists for officers for years. And pretty much all the academies, some of them, I think, require cadets to read that book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Kevin's right about the Pressfield book. So I think, but I also think Derek is right. The impact of the movie, I think, taken with that book. There was a ready audience when the movie came out.

I think it just reinforced sort of, you know, for many people. And especially if you think about when that movie came out. right you know and the themes of you know you know a few standing against evil of of freedom against oppression all of those kinds of things are very are primed you know victor davis hanson who's a somewhat controversial historian and classicist was an advisor on that film and so the way that film is parsed is in a way that will hook right into both press fields book and just you know how Americans view themselves. So I think, you know, and you add the masculinity piece to it, you know, I think people were sort of primed for that to make a big hit and be very influential

and to tap into something that really, you know, felt real and authentic to people. Tell us what the Pressfield book is. I'm not familiar with it. Gates of Fire is basically a sort of, I mean, it's not fictionalized, but it's press fields, you know, It's an account of the Battle of Thermopyla, but it's not, you know, I wouldn't, you know, it's not historical fiction, but it's not what we think of as academic history either, but it's very readable, it's very accessible, it's very sort of vivid, fairly short. It's been on professional reading list for a really long time. And Pressfield has several other books about the Warrior ethos and about the Spartans. And he's someone who's very, he's very influential in in military circles and and those books but especially the gates of fire are books that people that people read and so those also i mean literature and movies form how we think about things and how we how we experience war so i mean we know from vietnam that people going into vietnam had watched all these world war two movies and that that conditioned how they

thought about war and that's what they were expecting. So, I mean, these, these artifacts can have, you know, a great deal of power in framing and influencing how people think about themselves and think about what's happening to them. Is there anything to admire about the Spartans or is it something that should be set aside? I think, I mean, I think there's a great deal to admire about the Spartans. I think certainly the discipline piece is, is important. The idea. The idea, of, you know, being willing to, as long as we understand that for the Spartans, the warriors were, they were servants of their society. They were asked by their society to go, you know, and defend Sparta. And I think if we understand it in that way, I think there's value to this,

this idea of sacrifice. Certainly that, and this is a famous scene in the film too, and the, The queen says, come back, you know, with your shield or on it. And, of course, in Spartan society, that meant come back, come back on your shield meant come back dead, honorably dead. Or come back with your shield meant that you hadn't broken the phalanx line. And the phalanx line is how the Greeks fought. And so what that meant is go and fight honorably. And I think that that has value.

We want people to fight honorably. I teach military ethics. We want people to, you know, follow the rules, international law. We want them to follow the values and constraints of military professionalism. So if we think about maybe the Spartan values as a shot in the arm or as an augment to military professionalism, I think it can be really useful. if it replaces that or becomes a rival for that, then I think that's where we might have concerns.

And I do think the concerns that both Derek and Kevin have raised about to what degree does it increase civilian military gap, I think is a real question, especially with the military Vet Bro movement, right? To the degree that it's increasing separat, I think that's problematic because on that, on that front, the Spartans had different values than we did. So I think we have to look at, well, where do we share values, where are values that can support who we are as Americans and who the American military is? Great. But we also have to recognize that there are going to be points of departure to you. I agree with

Pauline. And I absolutely believe that these ideas of this, of a professional professional savagery, if you will, because the Spartans were professional soldiers. They knew how to fight and kill and win. I think that's absolutely important. And again, I'm leaning towards more of the specialized elite types of units, but that discipline and understanding that you are trained to kill, but you're professional about it, you know, that professional savagery, I think that's very important. but what's more important specifically with with in regards to you know ethic you know in regards

ethics is you need to modernize it this this there needs to be a sort of like a updated 21st century version version of this of the of the modern of the modern day Spartan there has to you have to have men and women that are willing to jump into the breach and and do what needs to be done there needs to be professional savages but there are also needs to be a metered approach to that. You need to understand how to back away from it and how to turn it on. I think it's very important. I think it's very, I think the Pressfield's book should still stay in required reading. But, you know, it should be buffered with one tribe at a time. You know, you don't want brand new second lieutenant's reading just gates of fire and going on like, okay, these are all my Spartans and we're going to, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this type of type of thing. You know, it's like we're going to destroy and kill. and do everything. You got young and prescientable minds in the regular military that need this discipline, but also need to understand that, you know, there's an update to it type of, if that makes sense.

Pauline Corinne, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk to us about this. You mentioned that you've got an upcoming book. Do you know what it's called and when it's coming out? It's coming out in 2020 on the U.S. Naval Institute Press, and it's on obedience. the title is still sort of to be determined. We'd love to have you back on when it's out and talk about it. Absolutely. All right, that's it for this week, War College listeners.

War College is me, Matthew Galt, and Derek, Derek Gannon and Kevin, Kevin Nodell. Derek and I do the hosting. I cut the episodes together, and Kevin does far more than you could ever imagine he does behind the scenes. Special thanks to Pauline Corinne for coming on to this week's episode. If you like the show, please like and subscribe on iTunes. Give us a star rating. Leave a comment. You can find more of us online at War underscore College

and also at Facebook.com forward slash war college podcast. We will see you next week where we're going back to Syria to get the Kurdish perspective.