Today we have a unique combat story. As you know I'm fascinated by the experiences of warriors in combat

and I've always wanted to better understand what that experience would have been like for some of the warriors of history like the Spartans, Romans, or Mongols.

On this episode, I'll interview Professor Barry Strouse, an accomplished scholar, historian, and expert on ancient military history.

Barry brings to life a very famous Spartan warrior named Bracidus as we dive into his combat story.

Bracidus led warriors into remarkable battles, employing conventional tactics that we see among the Spartan community,

but also leveraging special operations and psychological or hybrid warfare with great success.

Barry gives us a front row seat of what it was like to grow up and live in this austere, militaristic, and aggressive society that we know as Sparta.

We could not have done this without Barry, who is a professor of history and classics at Cornell University,

a series editor of Princeton's Turning Points in Ancient History, author of eight books, and a military-enable historian and consultant.

He's recognized authority on the subject of leadership and the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of the greatest political and military leaders of the ancient world.

He has a new book coming out in March 2022, titled The War that Made the Roman Empire, Anthony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium.

I hope you enjoyed this unique combat story of Bracidus and to dive into the world of Sparta as much as I did.

Welcome to Combat Story. I'm Ryan Fugid and I serve WarZone Tours as an Army attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15-year career.

I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat.

On this show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines.

This is Combat Story.

Barry, thanks for taking the time to share the story of another veteran with us today.

Ryan, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

So I wanted to give a little background for our listeners because this is going to be slightly different than what we typically do on Combat Story where we love to hear the story of veterans.

And just from a personal perspective for me, for those who listen, I've always been very interested in the lives of these veterans, not just the people we've talked to on the show,

but as you look back historically at who I might even see as the forebearers of the military doctrine that we used, the tactics we employ today, whether it's looking at James Conn, looking at the Spartans, Rome, Zulu warriors.

I just find it fascinating and I hate that we can't teleport back in time and ask these same questions of these of these warriors because I strongly suspect they dealt with a lot of the same problems.

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