'Cause that’s what it’ll take, and that kind of changes the equation more than a bit.
Yes, if we brought up here some of the best Roman soldiers and had them drill the NFL guys for a few years on tactics and weapons, their chances improve dramatically. There’s still the fact that they’re going to have to face actual death and not poop their pants, so who knows in the end what would happen.
But just picking upa nd taking NFL guys form the field and dumping in them in ancient Rome is what we’re discussing (I believe).
Sylmar, PTSD is at an all time high nowadays, and many if not most recruits see much death, let alone on a daily basis even in their non combatant lives.
Kfraser sportsmen suffer pain for a short space of time, more importantly a KNOWN period of time, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to endure, and they also know that they’re going to get the finest medical treatment going at the earliest opportunity during which time they will rest on their laurels in extreme comfort.
Their peak physical exertion will also be for a known and short period of time with frequent breaks.
All of this from a comfortable home life, well fed, sleep, warmth etc returned to when the game is over, made all the easier because there is no fear of sudden or slow death today or tomorrow or next week and so on.
Even in todays extreme military we have a saying that anyone can be brave when they’ve slept, eaten, been warm and dry in the previous few weeks.
That’s why it looks so glamorous in the movies.
Sportsmen can go out perform to their limits, safe in the knowledge that once the game is over they will be able to take it easy until the next known period of peak performance.
They’re not require to do a long march ONCE, and then that’s it, they have to do long marches day after day, in all terrains and all weather conditions, whether or not they have rotten feet footwear falling to bits, sores on their backs and bodies and thighs from wet and rubbing equipment.
And at the speed they’re told to, not the speed that they feel happiest with .
Most football players do not take difficukt coursework. It’s common for classes to be created for them that they can do nothing and pass just so that they’re academically eligible.
I agree that most other people are seriously underestimating the athleticism though. Those fat linemen are faster than the average american, I’m sure.
Good. This makes a large difference, as not everyone who plays football is trying to become a professional football player, and there is a big difference between, say, a pool of one million and a pool of eight million prospective kids.
Sure I guess the sight of a another man dying would make a NFL player crumble and they could never maintain any amount of courage when under the threat of death… certainly they wouldn’t have the courage under fire to earn a MoH and definetely not two of them…
Obviously not everyone is capable of that kind of courage… some would crumble, some would persevere, and some would excel… I am sure that not every recruit from ancient times could “hack” the life … and this idea that every ancient soldier is this bulwark of courage… last I looked many ancient battles ended with one side routing… so at least a couple choose to panic and flee when presented with the threat of imminent death…
I’m beginning to realize this is a discussion where absolutes are impractical.
As Aaron Hernandez demonstrated, there’s still some blood thirsty mofo’s who aren’t shy about spilling blood. I can see were L4L is coming from, it just couldn’t be applied across the board.
And war is pretty random. You could have spent decades training from youth and be the most feared fighter on the field just to have a spear leak all your badassedness into the sand.
Cumbersome, but I think to be fair we really need to work with qualifiers like," For the most part…" etc.
In my defense, I was typing on my tablet. Not sure if it was my error, or if the phone changed my words as it is prone to do. Vexing. I noticed the issue, but by that time the silly 5 minute timer had expired.
Not that making such a silly mistake is any indication of my intelligence or lack there of, or that your fixation on a careless grammar faux pas on a forum board that is about discussing interesting topics, not correcting grammar, is any indication of your inability to engage in the current discussion in a meaningful or remotely interesting way.
No, indeed. And I’m of the view that it’s possible that an NFL player might prove to be an effective warrior one-on-one, but they’d be starting from the level of a green recruit, and it would be a still steeper learning curve before they’d be any use with or against a Roman legion. The training, organisation and discipline wouldn’t come in a day any more than the building of Rome itself did, and they counted for a heckuva lot, hence the saying (I misremember where from) that one barbarian might be a match for ten Romans, but one thousand Romans were a match for ten thousand barbarians.
I don’t know all about the history of Rome, but I do seem to recall that the legions lost only one battle of any consequence in Britain, and then only when the Ninth got themselves cut off and surrounded by a force fifty-odd times their own. Watling Street, a little later, saw the XIVth and XXth legions brush off twenty times their own number and crush the Iceni revolt in a single day’s fighting.