This is a compelling long read. If the subject is of interest, the movie Restrepo and this talk from Sebastian Junger [1] may be of interest, too.
"[T]he experience of warfare seems to strike a chord deep within the psyche of the men in combat. The bonding among men, the heroism, the swinging extremes of victory won only by the palpable threat of mortal danger, the adrenaline rush and flood of endorphins during and after battle seem to be almost overwhelming to the human animal, eclipsing any larger moral considerations or even the rest of what we might call everyday life. To the men in the thick of the fight, it's an unrepeatable experience that they find themselves strangely missing years afterwards. What they miss doesn't minimize the horror of what they've experienced, and that's what they find so strange. In some respects once the shooting starts, the soldiers have all the justification they need to continue indefinitely. The immediacy of the experience provides satisfaction enough and requires no further rationale. In some ways it creates a microcosm of life and packs more than a lifetime's worth of living into its fleeting moments. How can life afterwards compare?"
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840955
> I heard a interview with a vet and climber once who described the appeal of alpinism as "all of the good parts of combat, without the shooting or any conscious thing trying to cause me harm".
Nothing comes close to combat. Nothing. There’s such an ocean between the sickening frantic chaotic competition with Death and “oh shit if this rock slips I’m going to end up a paragraph on page two of the morning paper”.
Plenty of us combat vets climb, and for the same reasons. Don’t be confused. Climbing can kill you like cigarettes, combat is like smoking crack while trying to land a jet on a carrier deck at night in a storm.
The experience is a good substitute for war and makes you understand yourself and others.
Actually I think your point would be stronger if your agreed with them—that sports do substitute for war in important ways, and use your knowledge and experience to show specifically where and when that stops being true.
I'm guessing he was talking about an immediate, all-consuming experience—a Zen kind of thing that he experienced, playing a physically tough and dangerous game at the world class level.
I cannot believe that that compares with what you describe. But I'm inclined to believe that there is some kind of continuum to which both experiences belong. Can you allow for the possibility that the football playing described by the athlete is at least a pale facsimile?
I've got no idea on the war thing, but it is something truly magical that I will treasure for the times it did happen.
Only 42 to get that nickname? After the World Wars happened? Wow. We've gotten soft in modern times.