I recall a few years ago when a number of people were caught in lies relative to being Navy Seals. Why would a person claim to have been a Navy Seal if they weren’t? The reason is simple enough. Navy Seals are a specialized brotherhood forged in the crucible of, for one, toughness. The training is tough; you have to be tough in mind and body; you have to endure things, things most can’t, to be a Seal.

I saw the respect given Navy Seals firsthand a few years ago. I was on a U.S. aircraft carrier as a journalist and guest. We were eating in this sprawling dining area and one of the ship’s officers in charge of looking after us journalists pointed out two uniformed guys across the room who were sitting alone. None of the other sailors invaded their space or involved them in the chatter and chow that filled the room. They were Navy Seals and the other sailors gave them plenty of room, visual proof that the sailors respected them for what they had endured in their training to get where they were. A part of that training involves pain and pushing oneself to the limit; we respect pain as a society. Indeed, we valorize pain.

A recent incident involving the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League is still playing itself out. When the story initially broke, the storyline went something like this: One of the Dolphins’ big offensive linemen, Jonathan Martin, had left the team as a result of alleged “bullying” by his teammates, especially by one Richie Incognito, another lineman. Further allegations included racial epithets directed at Martin, a physical altercation with a teammate, violent threats directed at Martin’s family and a death threat against Martin by Incognitio himself.

Now, a week later, we’re hearing more and more than some think Martin just needs to toughen up; that, while things may have gone a little overboard with regards to Martin’s situation, a lot of the stuff is simply the culture that has long existed in NFL locker rooms. As Nietzsche put it, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Thus, the more pain, humiliation and discomfort a player can endure to toughen up, the better he will be, the more “heroic” he becomes, and the higher fans will lift him in exaltation.

Steven L. Gardiner has written a paper on this mindset, what he calls “heroic masochism.” It’s about the hope we have that suffering has, or should have, a purpose. That’s why we haze people, put them through rituals that abuse and degrade them; that’s why we tear people down to build them up again, only better this time. That’s why a Richie Incognito becomes, not a bully, but a facilitator or instructor on life. As Gardiner puts it, the logic becomes this: suffering is something everybody ought to do.

Those Navy Seals, before whom the rest of the crew on that aircraft carrier parted like the Red Sea, had, in Gardiner’s words, demonstrated their “manliness ... the ability to submit to and endure ordeals of suffering.” They were, as a result, initiates who held membership in a small, specialized group “predicated on masculine performance ... risking injury or death” ... to “bond with the sacred nation.”

But this military model is increasingly making its way into our society at-large, especially in sports. Players are called “warriors” and contests “wars.” Sports uniforms are sometimes designed to look like military camo. We link sporting events to military flyovers, welcome home events for military personnel, and other military observations. One “fan” critical of Jonathan Martin, not Richie Incognito, recently wrote in a sarcastic tone that perhaps his drill sergeants from the military should be brought up on charges.

But the fact is a coach isn’t a drill sergeant. A player isn’t a Navy Seal, any more than a field of sports competition is a battlefield. This “heroic masochism” that begins to be taught in pee wees and is enforced on up the line through the college and professional ranks is leading to such aberrations as this: Tony Dorsett, the Heisman Trophy winner and Dallas Cowboy great, has let it be known that at age 59 he is suffering from CTE, the degenerative brain disease that results from concussions. Dorsett is suffering from memory loss, personality changes and suicidal thoughts. That sounds a little too close to the signature wounds from our current military wars, namely, traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The lines are getting too blurred between war and sports. One is not the other and those who think they are one and the same are creating a culture in America that is going to result in more and more “casualties.”

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.