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In modern times, we have foolishly insisted on a separation between the Warriors and the Savants. Universities are full of savants who will babble endlessly about society, but never defend it. Militaries are full of warriors who will babble endlessly about defending their society, but not understand it. To quote Thucydides: "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Actually, in modern America, we have a highly educated military, with more Savants in the U.S. Army than there are Warriors in universities (can you say "effete ivory tower pseudointellectual," boys and girls?).

It was not always such. Leaders were expected to lead in war and peace; the true citizen expected to understand the body politic and be prepared to defend it. Some shining examples:
SOCRATES was a hoplite before he was a philosopher
WALTER REED was a battalion surgeon before he was a researcher
JOHN MCCRAE was an artilleryman before he was a doctor and a poet
JOSHUA CHAMBERLAIN was a college professor before he was soldier

ADDENDUM - CAST OF CHARACTERS:
- Warriorsavant - Hi! That's me. I'm more family man than warrior these days.
- Nom - my kind, smart, and lovely wife. Accountant and homemaker. Born in Saigon (i.e. she is Vietnamese, and that is "Saigon," not "Ho Chi Minh City"). So named b/c I misheard her actual name as "Nom," which being current slang for delicious, I thought rather appropriate
- Hedgefund - our daughter and (so far as I know) first born. So named b/c when we were contemplating children, Nom insisted her firstborn would be a hedgefund manager, make a billion dollars, and support mom in her old age in the style she'd like to become accustomed to. We used that as a "project name" pre-conception and during pregnancy, then as a nickname afterwards.
- Wallstreet - our son and (so far as we're currently planning) last born. So named in keeping with the theme of financial names.
- Since have run out of clever nicknames, will have to stop adding to the family.

SO WHY DERM?
This in answer to question from prior post, and now posted into my profile.

I went through medical school on military scholarship (Navy originally). At that time, you only needed a 1-year internship, both in the military and in most states, which I did in a Navy hospital. The term “Intern” was slowly being phased out (now called R1 or 1st year of residency), and officially even then, there were no rotating internships, but that was effectively what it was. During med school, our only Derm exposure was 1 hour of lecture. When I started my internship, one of the few useful pieces of advise I got was “you’re going to see a lot of Derm in the Fleet (or in civilian primary care, for that matter), you’d better do a Derm elective.

I had fun initially, first in the Navy, then outside, as a general practitioner. When people asked my specialty, I’d cross my arms, sniff superiorly, and announce “I’m not a specialist, I’m a real doctor.” For a while I worked in ERs (even today, smaller ERs don’t have residency-trained ER Docs), but I got very tired of people being drunk and stupid at 3 AM and my having to do something about it. Frankly, I was too often out of depth. I gravitated more and more to walk-in clinics. However, after too much time doing that, I realized if it wasn’t an ear ache or sore throat, I didn’t know what to do about it. I realized it was time to break down and do further training.

I thought about Radiology, because I’m very visually oriented, and I thought I didn’t want to see patients if I could avoid it (the one problem with medicine in general, is that people actually want to TALK to me). I even went back to my old school and took the student Radiology elective, and was even accepted into a residency. Then I had a relevation, I actually do like seeing patients, I just hated what I was doing. I mentionned this to the nurses where I was working, who broke out laughing. “Silly doctor, we knew that, you should have just asked your nurses.” (Generally good advice.) I thought back to the fact that I actually did enjoy Derm as an Intern (one of the few bright period in that darkness), that I was visually-oriented, combining my Mother’s artistic eye with my Father’s manual skills (I like the procedural parts of Derm). I applied very widely (Derm then as now is tough to get into), and by a fluke was accepted at McGill.

No regrets. Derm is a hoot. It can be medicine, surgery, esthetics, allergy, or photobiology; it can be academic, super simple or mind-boggling complex, and it’s all right there in front of your eyes. There are days when they could not pay me enough for what I’m doing (pro tip: do NOT try to play gross-out with someone who spends his day looking at skin disease, not to mention with dealing with head cases). Other days, I can’t believe I get to do all this cool stuff, and they even pay me to do it.