1. notleia says:

    Rando thoughts compiled into something resembling a comment:

    I need to get around to reading Old Man’s War.

    I think it was a Thing that in places like Lincolnshire there was a law requiring war-aged men to practice their longbow archery in preparation of being levied for their lord. So they’re an interesting point on the Venn diagram of a part-time conscription that was also hereditary class-based.

    One of the many things we missed out on in Voyager was to see how B’Elanna Torres got to be an engineer. Or how any Klingons get into engineering, really, since studying is not really a Klingon pastime.

  2. Old Man’s War sounds interesting 🙂

    Something notleia’s comment reminded me of was how a lot of the main battlefield medics are in Naruto. The most notable ones are Tsunade, Sakura, and maybe Nohara Rin. Even though these characters had to study very hard to become medics, they also had to train hard in regular ninja skills so they could defend themselves during missions, keep up with their regular ninja comrades, etc. Medic battle training tends to be different for them, in that it’s more defensive and such. But in a way one kinda has to respect those chars just because of all that. Like, they’re having to pull double and triple duty as far as training goes. And in the middle of a battle it’s probably a lot more complicated for them. If a battle or mission goes really horrible, not only do they have to work through the battle stress and fatigue regular ninja are dealing with, but they also have to remain composed enough to give their comrades vital medical attention.

    I suppose that also makes me curious as to how much military training non soldier military personel have in various cultures and why.

    • Travis Perry says:

      We are by no means finished discussing training…hopefully as we continue we’ll help answer some of these questions.

    • Definitely more to come. A personal interest of mine have been times in our history when civilians are pressed into service for their specialties. Think of Master and Commander, British naval combat at its most romanticized (some might even say peak), and the ship’s doctor coming from a personal practice in the community to become a naval surgeon (the movie version implies it was not exactly by choice that he came). In some capacity he is a warrior and demonstrates courage under duress. Yet, at heart, he’s there to patch the crew up and make the best he can of the situation as cannon shot flies all about. Fascinating to consider.

What do you think?