The talk Schappert was supposed to give was intended to give the active members a role model, to show them a successful alumnus who’s seen his share of hard knocks and who could give them support and guidance. The visit turned out to be as helpful for Schappert as it was for the chapter. “Life starts to split into fragments,” he says, “and I wish I had maintained the bonds with my brothers more closely. But when we saw each other, it was like no time had passed.”

And that became his message to the chapter: Enjoy life. It moves quickly and you never know when it will end. His message to the men was far from morbid — it was uplifting. It was inspiring.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “battle is not glorious. It’s a guy with a sword looking at another guy with a sword and they both know one of them isn’t walking away. It’s violent. It’s dirty. Men who are killed in battle, I can tell you, aren’t glorious. Death is terrible. What’s glorious is the way you live your life and how you live for something greater.”

That idea of dedication to a greater cause became a running theme throughout the television show, which he started filming about a year after his visit to the chapter. “There’s the physical part of battle, the ‘hey, I just won’ aspect,” he says, “but you have to join that with the philosophical reasons for war, the advancing of a cause that’s greater than yourself.”

So why was the show called Warriors? Why not call it something like … Fighters? Soldiers? War Techniques of the World? “My definition of a warrior isn’t someone who’s just a good fighter,” he says. “Those guys fighting in the Ultimate Fighting Championships or a prizefighter? I wouldn’t automatically call them warriors. A warrior fights for something bigger than himself. He fights for a country, a concept or his buddy next to him. A warrior can be nonviolent. Gandhi was a warrior.”

So if a warrior fights for something bigger than himself and can be nonviolent, aren’t we all warriors? The Fraternity, after all, is an organization with a century and a half of tradition and ritual behind it. Men have spent lifetimes in its service, men have made it their purpose to forget self and to forge a brotherhood that would last far beyond themselves.

“That’s exactly it,” Schappert says. “When I landed the show, my goal was to show the continuity of the warrior community. It’s a metaphor for humanity. When you get through Green Beret training, you look at the men who worked with you for two years and you realize you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the same thing. The Fraternity is about shared sacrifice. You do things for your friends even if it’s inconvenient.”

Even if it’s inconvenient. That’s a lofty concept, one that passes through the consciousness of many college students like the due date on a term paper — quickly dismissed, even more quickly forgotten. After joining the North Carolina Delta chapter during the first semester of his freshman year, Schappert was interested in many things: playing football for the university’s club team, pursuing acting, going to parties and meeting girls. It sounds like a normal four years, one that’s repeated thousands of times each year on our campuses countrywide.

During his final two years at North Carolina, he served the chapter as Eminent Archon. He even went as far to state his greatest weakness as EA. “I wasn’t very organized,” he says. “I would be a much better president if I could do it again today.” But the chapter still flourished, and after four years, he realized that the Fraternity helped discover something that he had known all along. “It was the same when I played football, and it would later be the same thing with the Green Berets,” he says. “You realize you’re part of a team. There are going to be bad days, but your team is going to hold out a hand and bring you up. And there are going to be days when your buddies are having a tough time and you’re going to be there for them. And that’s life. The SAE part of my life reinforced that.”

And that became the realization of what is and what isn’t important. Schappert acknowledges that it’s taken him years to have these sorts of insights, but life isn’t lived in reverse.

“I want the young college guys to understand that part of being a warrior — part of manhood, really — is being able to acknowledge your emotions and the power of the moment,” he says. “There are going to be people who don’t like you. But choose your path and be as honorable as you can. Mean what you say and say what you mean. Things will fall into place.”

His strong words — honor and manhood — are directly influenced by his time in the military, but they also echo something that every Fraternity man knows: “The True Gentleman.” “The Green Berets are known as ‘the quiet professionals,’” he says, “and SAEs are ‘the true gentlemen.’ They’re exact parallels. You don’t have to talk loudly to get attention. You don’t have to do stupid things. Both are men who know the right way and who act that way.”

Take it from a true warrior and the star of Warriors: “You’re going to fail many times,” Schappert says. “Accept it. And don’t judge when someone else does. You always get another chance.”

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