By Gavin Witt, Resident Dramaturg 

“I wish we were a nation at war, and not just a military at war.” 
-ReEntry

At this point, most of us are familiar with the famous dictum that "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” Heck, it even got an airing (paraphrased) in the mouth of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. Getting past the lulling familiarity of the notion, however, and its rhetorically elegant phrasing, maybe we ought to find ourselves wondering, what does it mean for those who stand ready? What does it take to go out there and come back, and what does it take out of those who do? 

Wars, from tribal skirmishes to the clash of empires, have been fought for longer than we have records or the capacity to recall. But not everyone who's ever hefted a weapon and gone into battle is necessarily a warrior—and not every culture for whom they fight is necessarily a warrior culture. Does that make a difference—not so much during, but before and after?

Thinking about this, I was struck by three broad simplifications. There are, I mused, those who go to war because they are forced to—conscripted say, or in defense against attack; these might be enslaved auxiliaries in Xerxes’ Persian army, or Yankee draftees in our Civil War, or the trench rats of WWI, or Polish militias staving off the German Blitzkrieg. Or there are those who fight as committed volunteers or dedicated professionals, but for whom war is an interruption in their ordinary lives—citizen-soldiers from the Battle of Marathon to Lexington and Concord, or wily guerillas of jungles, mountains, or veldt; condottieri for hire, English redcoats, French lancers, or modern service members. And then there are those whose lives are defined by warfare—who stand at the apex of cultures predicated on supporting them in their training for, practice of, and survival from war, which forms the core of their identity. 

Do these latter enjoy a relationship between them, their fellows, and the rest of their community that changes their experience of going and coming—if that even exists for them as a distinction? This could be by virtue of the ratio, as well as the manner, in which they serve; or it could stem from the way in which they are prepared, as well as how they are received on return. What ReEntry imagines as the "membrane" between Back Here and Over There might in these cases simply not exist.

These are just thoughts, questions, considerations. But some historical examples seem to stand out as, arguably, Warrior Cultures. In them, (usually, but not exclusively) young men either chose or were given into military service or its equivalent from a young age, and lived in that world entirely or nearly so. In them, the fundamental assumption of their personhood, the highest aspiration of citizenship, or the defining path to prosperity and honor lay through being a warrior. 

If you are one among them, the experience of fighting defines the boundaries of your experience—there's no  regular life—“the world”—that you leave periodically and try to return to; there is only war. Among them, you are more like your peers, fellows, or family in being a warrior than you are unlike—including that you are part of a continuum of those before you and those who will come after who all share your experience in common. And with them, you stand in a right relationship with your culture and community in the going and returning: honored for your service, understood through shared experience; likely you have a rite of passage that marked your entry into the warrior life, a ritual associated with battle, and some meaningful form of purification on return—anything from human sacrifice to carousing to a simple washing of hands.

Who embody these cultures? In rough but hardly historical order, they might include:

Spartan hoplites—as distinct from the citizen soldiers of other Greek city-states, these fearsome warriors were born and bred for one thing: combat. The entire apparatus of state existed to train and sustain them from infancy to adulthood and death, not as individuals but as selfless, stoic instruments of the Spartan war machine.

Roman legionaries—recruited relatively later in life, around 20, these soldiers committed a required 25 years to fighting from frontier to frontier across a vast empire, honed through constant training into the crème de la crème of ancient might and revered by the city that paid them in salt—the first salary.

Medieval knights—also known in his heyday as the prieux chevalier, practitioner of an almost sacred code of honor and probably as much a factor of legend as of reality, a knight began training as a young squire and stood at the pinnacle of honor and respect , linchpin of a highly developed feudal system both military and social.

Viking raiders—the terrifying Norsemen who descended by longboat out of the mists were lifelong warriors, in a culture centered on the warband. Conflict was so endemic that when not out raiding from Jerusalem to the Russian steppes, or up and down Europe, they simply fought one another. 

Inca warriors—given before adolescence to the warrior path, young males grew up with constant training, strict privation, and religious fervor to become fierce fighters—their nearly constant bloodshed purified by society-wide rituals of sacrifice and violence.

The fearsome Zulu, who conquered much of African and nearly mastered the British imperial army with calfskin shield and short spear; the bushido-bound samurai of Japan; Apache braves, Sioux warriors, Blackfoot tribesmen, and other warriors of the American plains; the dashing Hussars and mustachioed Lancers of the Austro-Hungarian empire; and many others, from blue-painted Celts and Turkish janissaries to Mongol archers and tatooed Maoris.

Today, modern armies feature disciplined, effective professionals as never before—but is that the same? Maybe a crucial difference lies less in the capacity of individuals, and more in their relationship with the society they serve. It can't be news to any that more and more of us are more and more removed not just from the experience of war but even from those conducting it. From the simplest shoppers to halls of Congress. So without regard to politics or patriotism, maybe we have something to learn from the idea of the Warrior Culture, something that is less about understanding their sacrifice and more about understanding our role in it.

If we are going to rely on those few to stand ready, maybe we owe them that much.