This week marks 40 years since Fiji first contributed troops to United Nations' Peacekeeping forces.
Since those first 500 servicemen were deployed to Lebanon in 1978 the country has continued in the programme, providing more UN peacekeepers than any other nation, on a per capita basis.
Fiji has benefited from an increased international profile and the significant peacekeeper salaries.
But what of the impact on Fijian society?
Dominic Godfrey takes a look.
In an election year in Fiji, the country is looking at two leadership options, both former military strongmen.
Prime minister Frank Bainimarma maintains a strong connection with the military and is a proponent of continued UN Peacekeeping however his competitior Sitiveni Rabuka sees a changing role at home.
"We'd like to maintain our profile in peacekeeping in the international scene but more for our assistance in development at home. Not so much as a military force but as a construction and development arm of government."
Mr Rabuka said the military would no longer have any prominent role in the maintenance of law and order with him at the helm and said hey'd be answerable to the minister and cabinet.
A former member of parliament Roko Tupou Draunidalo says the military's role is pervasive and harmful throughout Fiji society.
She says beyond the foreign investment lost through Fiji's militarism and coup culture, the function of government is compromised.
"When the military takes over their people or people that they choose take over in the civil service, permeate the civil service at senior levels. And because they are not trained to do that job their incompetence is now showing or has been showing its ugly head for years."
Roko Tupou said the military also gets unwarranted educational opportunities.
But the military's chief of staff Brigadier General Jone Kalouniwai disagrees, saying the skills they acquire are useful later to the Fiji civil service.
"They have their experience, they have their qualification to work within that particular environment. I think it's just a matter of how they contribute towards that particular environment. We within the military as in all militaries, there's a more direct approach in terms of how they do their work, their responsibilities in terms of leadership."
He says different work cultures take time to adapt to.
The executive director of the Fiji Women's Rights Movement says the impact of militarism on Fiji society has been profound.
Nalini Singh talks about Fiji's strong laws and policies against violence, sexual violence and rape, protecting the rights of women and children, being ineffective in cutting incident levels.
"One of the reasons we think is a real issue is this culture of hyper-masculinity displayed in our communities by men and one of the things we think leads to it is this culture of acting with absolute impunity by our military. There needs to be a separation of the state and the arm of the military."
Jone Kalouniwai agrees the impact on Fiji is apparent and said for soldiers returning from deployment it can be a difficult adjustment.
Mr Kalouniwai said during periods in recent years a third of the military had been deployed as UN Peacekeepers and they've seen how it's affected them.
"It has brought in those positive and negative impacts on the families. In most cases we've had families that have virtually broken up in terms of marriages, children have lost their fathers, families have lost their loved ones."
Fifty six Fijians have died while serving as UN Peacekeepers.
Mr Kalouniwai says the communal village setting of Fiji helps soldiers re-integrate on return but he says the military also tries to play a part.
"In terms of getting them under a counselling programme and trying to assist them in terms of seeing that they maintain their families and that they come back and are able to go back into society and into their families."
Despite laws and programmes to protect the vulnerable of the country, figures of domestic and sexual violence in the country do not look set to change.
However in the election later this year the country has the option to choose a differing role for the military.
