A couple of years ago when I was in the Army National Guard, we flew down to Puerto Rico for an excellent weekend of training that culminated in a live-fire exercise.
Before my squad ran through the live-fire exercise, we were (as is typical) sitting around our rucksacks, taking care of our equipment, sleeping, and generally bullshitting. Since our turn on the lane was coming up, I pulled out my white portable altar-cloth, lit a candle, and prayed to Ares. My pagan-friendly classics-major buddy joined in while our Christian platoon leader looked on. We sacrificed a bag of M&Ms from an MRE to the Lord of War, and at the end, I handed one of the M&Msto the PL. He got all nervous and said “If I eat this, will it make me pagan?” I told him that was ultimately up to him. So he ate it. Big shocker, it did not “make him pagan…”
The live-fire exercise was brutal, but it went well and nobody got hurt. The weather was dry and everything pretty much burst into flame. By “everything” I mean an entire mountain. I’m not going to lie; it was completely awesome.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Sounds like a whole metric crap-ton of fun!
[…] The God of War is Alive and Well. From Wednesday: The Wheat – Hymn to Mars. From Kullervo: Ares in Puerto Rico. From Ruadhán: Boeotian Theoi: Ares. From Apollodoros: Arēs: An Unpopular God. From Ruadhán: […]
Awesome! I saw this linked into in Sannion’s link round up and my ears perked. (I’m half-Puerto Rican). I’m curious about the altar-cloth, as I’m always curious about portable altars and other ritual/devotional tools. Is it a cloth that you put a candle and a food offering on, or is it set up a different way?
Yep. Just a white handkerchief that I bought, wrapped a candle in, and kept it in my rucksack.
We were at Camp Santiago.