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Just click the link in the show description to support now. 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 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 loin cloth, 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-aged males going to see this movie and then coming out

feeling because 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 Gault. And I'm Derek Cannon.

When you hear the word Sparta, there is 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 Thermopyli,

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

...