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This article examines the characteristics and conditions of the development of a trend that emerged in the army in the early 1980s—that of expressions of identity. These expressions asserted their vocation of combat after being denied this by the military policy in the 1970s, which made them obsolete. At the end of the previous century, using multiple non-verbal channels, this trend expressed “specific military characteristic(s)” all the more strongly and with more legitimacy as the expeditions in which the army was involved renewed an epic, albeit peaceful, feeling, which the dissuasive element had deprived them of. This trend is now culminating in a profusion of identity-based manifestations, including the abundant use of the notion of culture that explicitly states what was yesterday inconceivable.