This chapter examines the motivation of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) soldiers as derived from their personal ephemera, in particular unpublished documents collected directly from the battlefield by US forces and their allies. These frontline accounts in the Vietnamese language uncover hidden memories and offer important clues to understanding the diversified enlistment, combat, and sustaining motivations of the Northern-born regulars. Such organic memories contribute an unvarnished immediacy that can clarify the North Vietnamese fighters perceptions and experiences during the war. Employing individual memory and associated narratives as both source and subject fits into a fairly small genre, representing a very new field without an operating paradigm to amplify understanding of and fill gaps in the PAVN histories. This chapter, in contrast to many Vietnam War studies, explores how the PAVN was not invincible and how it was also a conscript rather than a volunteer army of combatants who shared feelings similar to homesick draftees wearing the US and other uniforms.

Chapter 7 forms the second of the two chapters examining cases which one would expect to fall into the middle circle in the loose concentric circles model, where both forum internum relevance and countervailing factors may both be strong or both be weak and, as such, for the degree of protection offered to depend heavily on the way in which the ECtHR balances the factors. Chapter 7 examines cases in which applicants have objected to acting contrary to their religion or belief, or have objected to disclosing their religion or belief. Again, this chapter seeks to show that the ECtHR’s approach is consistent with its general principles concerning Article 9 as the ECtHR balances factors indicating a violation (primarily, but not only, forum internum relevance) with countervailing factors indicating no violation, to reach its decision. This chapter reiterates that the fact-sensitive nature of such cases means that protection offered ranges from a high to a low degree depending on the particular circumstances of the case.

The Epilogue examines how trends from the 1990s continued to develop in the following decade. These included the growing civil–military gap, even as the American public lauded the troops as heroes; tensions between notions of the soldier as a male warrior and more inclusive visions of soldiers might be; and the question of what roles soldiers might be asked to take on. First, it explores how soldiers began to talk about themselves as ‘Spartans’, referencing their separate status as a warrior caste. It also examines how popular culture and the military itself began to increasingly venerate Special Forces ‘operators’, using these images to sell products as diverse as video games, fitness regimes and coffee blends, but also to reinforce notions of American soldiers as quasi-supermen, capable of incredible feats. Finally, it examines a cultural phenomenon that cut against the grain of ‘Spartan’ and ‘operator’ images: the ‘Fobbit’ – a term that refers to the personnel deployed to Forward Operating Bases but who avoided combat by remaining at the base, a description that then broadened to describe all sorts of personnel who deployed overseas but didn’t face the prospect of combat.

Very few Christians rejected the Roman Empire in principle; rather, many saw it as a prerequisite for their mission because of the peace that the Empire created. Nevertheless, conflicts arose: Few understood why Christians, who worshipped only one God, did not want to sacrifice. In the eyes of contemporaries, this could provoke the gods and endanger social peace, and was a reason for persecution in many places. Many Christians made sacrifices under pressure, but some also became martyrs who gained great prestige. Meanwhile, some Christians entered the service of the state and held public office or became soldiers. They often made compromises that strict Christians criticised. Some seemingly enjoyed the glamour of public duties. That Christians would dominate the empire was by no means a foregone conclusion even at the end of the third century, at the time of Constantine the Great.

This chapter explores the role India’s Jews played in the armies of the British Raj and subsequently in the armed forces of independent India. By the late nineteenth century, soldiery was one of Bene Israel’s primary occupations but of no other Jewish group at the time. With World War I, other Jewish groups in India began to enlist, and this tradition became even stronger after India's independence. The chapter also investigates the barriers against this service and the achievements in this field Jews have had nonetheless.

Having documented the uneven and combined developmental trajectories of Britain and France, in this chapter I will begin to explore the significance of Jacobinism for our understanding of the rise of multiple modernities outside Western Europe. To this end, I seek to identify the precise nature and concrete outcome of the "combined" character of Ottoman modernization. It shows that the late Ottoman Empire can neither be understood as a "patrimonial state" nor can it be conceptualized as a "peripheral capitalism." Instead, the end result of the Ottoman experiment with modernity was a historically specific Jacobinism that combined and bypassed capitalism (and socialism) based on an alternative form of property and sociality.

The case of an African soldier who served with distinction in the Roman army and who retired to his highland home town prompts a consideration of the problems of identity and behavior as they were shaped by an empire with its own fiscal, administrative, and military categories and demands. The question considers the negotiated aspects of identity in which local attachments of language, kinship, and place were made to merge with the categories of name, military rank, language, and armed service imposed by an imperial regime. Rather than one element effacing the other, it is shown how they could coexist in a split sense of identity through many generations over the height of the empire. Perhaps more than is often imagined, it seems that the structure of the empire was itself bifurcated and capable of sustaining such split identities all the way down to the most localized levels of the imperial social order.

The case of an African soldier who served with distinction in the Roman army and who retired to his highland home town prompts a consideration of the problems of identity and behavior as they were shaped by an empire with its own fiscal, administrative, and military categories and demands. The question considers the negotiated aspects of identity in which local attachments of language, kinship, and place were made to merge with the categories of name, military rank, language, and armed service imposed by an imperial regime. Rather than one element effacing the other, it is shown how they could coexist in a split sense of identity through many generations over the height of the empire. Perhaps more than is often imagined, it seems that the structure of the empire was itself bifurcated and capable of sustaining such split identities all the way down to the most localized levels of the imperial social order.

Using the lens of military history, this chapter examines the broad significance of the Boshin War. It details how over the course of that conflict, early modern military structures were swept away as lords (daimyo) adopted Western rifle technology and its accompanying modern military systems. Moreover, the nascent Meiji government used mobilization for the war to eventually force all lords to adopt new military practices and methods. In addition, the chapter presents a social history of the battlefield, exploring for example, logistics and how armies were supplied. It also examines the military equipment employed and the shifting nature of battlefield practices and customs, while revealing the ways in which civilians and their communities tangibly experienced the Boshin War, and thus the larger historical moment of the Meiji Restoration.