This article is going to be based on my understanding of the myth of the original Spartan warriors and what a modern equivalent would look like. Many people compare themselves to the Spartan warrior and even do workouts that claim to build them the way a Spartan would look. This is a laughable statement once you learn how the Spartan warriors really lived. The modern equivalent of a warrior of Sparta would probably make our most elite troops worldwide look unskilled and undisciplined. Remember through this article that I am only taking history and trying to draw a reasonable parallel that exists in fantasy. However, I hope it proves entertaining and even inspiring. Just brainstorming this article has proved quite inspirational for my workouts and training routines. SPARTAN WARRIORS OF OLD As I mentioned earlier, the original Spartan warrior lived a life that was very hard and short-lived most of the time. Their training was such that they were considered to live like animals and trained to conquer any battlefield, even when outnumbered. Each Spartan was said to be equal to ten of any of the worlds best warriors, and that may have been the case. They were raised to be rugged and robust in physical capability, have controlled aggression, superior discipline, and hearty resolve. The privilege of this suffering and advanced training was only given to true citizen males of Sparta. Taken from the age of 7 to serve for most of his natural life as weapon of the state, Spartan male performance had to be top notch constantly. They were constantly under-fed, lacked sufficient rest, and were poised against each other to test aggressiveness and skill. If a boy failed to meet the standards, often they were cast into the wild with nothing more than a knife. Also, it is interesting to learn that most boys and men in the Spartan military compulsorily homosexual, even when married after 30 years old. There are plenty men that had to be “warmed up” by their brethren prior to seeding their wives to produce future Spartans. Contrary to popular belief, Spartan warriors did not go into battle shirtless, but rather seemed to be more armored than a majority of their rivals. They certainly exercised in the nude to prevent body shame and to encourage maintaining their version of a healthy weight. Also, the physical training of the Spartan warrior was centered around agility, marching, weapons and tactics drills, and daily tasks such as pulling reeds to make a bed. There was very little athletic training put into the mix, except for some gymnastics and dance. Spartans often shunned athletics as a waste of time for their goal of building a robust fighter. Though much of this discusses their hardships, also remember that these fighters were not just brutes, but were taught also to be tacticians as well. They needed to learn to use the terrain while also being able to quickly move their formations to answer the changing nature of combat. This is the Spartan warriors of old. There is a lot more that I could have gotten into, but I think there is enough here to lay a foundation for the rest of this article. SELECTED AND RAISED FOR WAR My idea for the modern Spartan is that a country would develop a special unit made to respond to the most dangerous missions from deep reconnaissance to raids to hostage rescue. There is no limelight for these people since their existence is a complete secret and these warriors are not entitled to a personal life. With children being born and surrendered directly to the state, it would be plausible to pick use these children as the recruits. This means there is no volunteering and the recruits would only be infants that meet the physical requirements, just like the original Spartans. Each student would be given a number instead of a name to set them apart and identify them. Because it can take years to show signs of things like allergies, diabetes, asthma, I imagine these boys would likely be started out in a secret military academy as an initiation into the lifestyle they will be expected to live. This is where they will learn discipline, physical training standards, drill, etc. At this early phase, brainwashing and personality control would start in order to maintain a focus on war 24/7. There would be very little laughing or crying here since both would be punished. Along with the harsh military training would be basic elementary learning in things like math, English, geography, and history. I imagine that the history portion would be tweaked to show how undisciplined and defenseless civilians are, and how inferior volunteer military is that isn’t born into service. They will be taught that the most honorable thing in life is to sacrifice themselves in combat in order to allow a thankless public to go on. Much like the original Spartan warriors, death in combat was the ultimate honor, right behind victory. At any time during these first years (About 8 Years), any child that shows a shortcoming will be evaluated for recovery or reintegration into society. If the child is too far brainwashed, the only option to keep this unit a secret would be using them later on as training tools. For those privilege enough to continue training, it will be common for the recruits to not be fed for either a single meal, or for a couple of days. They will be expected to perform no different and not develop aggression. There will be mixed in times of sleep deprivation while learning to ensure retention of information and performance under stress. It will be during these early years that it will be common to have rifles and pistols shot near the children for them to adapt to incoming fire, learn the sounds, and stay disciplined despite the natural fear response. Also, each recruit will learn horticulture and how to run a farm. This is done in order to use the farms to keep the unit self-sufficient and establish a low footprint and budget radar. At ages 8 through 13, the boys will be introduced to military tactics and unit specific standard operating procedure. They will be expected to learn all the maneuvers and standards of communication, roles of each position in the team, etc. The recruits will start getting more intense physical training and exposure to being able to use violence. They will learn how to fight bare-handed, restrain hostages rescued, and how to fight multiple attackers. This will be where the medical failures will be used as training tools for fighting, sometimes to the death. During this phase, the recruits will still be expected to perform and will be graded on their skill and warrior attitude. Unless a recruit develops a disease like delayed-onset asthma or early cancer, they will continue training. By now, the recruit’s food will come entirely from the farm, and they will be required to kill their meals and prepare their meals. During the ages 14 to 17, recruits will begin learning how to use real weapons in conjunction with the tactics and methods they learned. They will use electronic simulators to learn external ballistics at first. They will then start out with blanks and graduate to only using live ammunition. They will be introduced to demolitions and anything that goes boom and how to use it from breaching to ambushing to sabotage. During this phase, each recruit will be responsible for learning to load their own ammunition using components. This will help the government keep the expenditures low. Here they will also learn terminal ballistics and how to use bullets to kill efficiently. During the ages 18 to 20, performance on the live fire range will be honed patiently and leaders will be established from the top performers. The recruits will be broken into smaller teams and expected to carry out training missions without fail. They will learn every type of mission and expect to be able to meet the standards for performance in the basics of all fields they could have to undertake. They will learn survival, evasion, and escape techniques and will demonstrate this ability by living a week in the wild with nothing but fatigues and a pocket knife. Those who make it out will continue training. If a recruit needs rescuing, they will be sent to the training tool unit along with all the diseased and useless recruits who are not trained. On the last day of the year, 20 years after the recruits were born into training, all the recruits will be expected to do one last thing. All recruits that met the minimum requirements will be required to kill at least one member of the medical failures in a CQB setting where the failures are given only a knife to fight with. This will indoctrinate them into killing with a firearm and act as their graduation to a new life of being operational. Keep in mind that these are not just warrior brutes, but thinking human beings who are well versed in tactics, psychology, medicine, and controlled ass kicking. All is necessary to create the ideal warrior. ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS Now that the recruits have graduated basic training, their training will continue, but now will be split into specific sections. The top performing teams will be put into direct action domestic/foreign counterterrorism Raids, hostage rescue, HVT capture/kill, and sabotage operations. Basically, anything secret that can be done quickly and only involves killing, capturing, demolitions. The rest will be put into transportation, infiltration, short/long range reconnaissance, and QRF/support. After about a year or two of training and fine-tuning, these new teams will become operational. Between deployments, the teams will be training and honing their skills, independently and united, with wargames and constant adaptation to the changing tactics and technology. Basically, this unit will have become like SEAL Team 6, Delta/CAG, Rangers, MARSOC, and the SAS on steroids with almost no profile. By this point, these warriors may render these units pointless and cause them to be repurposed. How could you hope to match a homogenous unit that was raised specifically for war and to be the best and most effective at fighting any enemy? LIFELONG SERVITUDE Just as the Spartans of old, the life of these boys will be under the rule of the state, but they will never be allowed to marry or have a social life. With a dwindling and lax special force, it is conceivable that a country could develop this type of warrior unit that will go for a lifetime in service to the state. Every hour of instruction and schooling will be a true investment with little risk of failure or loss of an asset. In order to keep the investment as long as possible, as the years go on, or warriors are injured, those still useful will be put to work replacing the civilian element in things like operations, training, weapons maintenance/assembly/development, and certain command roles. Their life of experience will make them well suited for these roles. But once these modern Spartans can no longer serve, they will be used as training tools for the graduation of new recruits before going operational. CLOSING REMARKS How is that for taking the life of a Spartan and giving it a modern twist. Lacking a reason to have a society built on conquest, I find it reasonable to have a rebirth of the Spartan system to offer a better and more cost-effective option for highly trained government controlled direct action forces. Given my understanding of the brain, I feel that it would be totally doable to teach children a multitude of subject to the point of high proficiency since the more the brain is told to change gears without a loss of proficiency being allowed, the more adaptive the brain gets. Modern military training operates a lot like this where one second you are learning drill and rank structure and the next you are learning battle drills. So, if people are raised into this high-performance lifestyle, it is easy to see how they can become masters in their craft, much like the original warriors of Sparta. In order to call yourself a Spartan, I think you may need to up your game. Doing HIIT along with intermittent weapons training and LARPing in a militia would not make you a modern spartan, but rather a panty-waste in comparison. Other than that, I have no opinion.
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