Ok, this has a lot of potential to be a really dumb question but hear me out. I've read a little on WW1, probably the least "fun" war ever, but apparently in early days of this war, many soldiers were writing about how they were looking forward to the war and their expected victory.
Were these people just disillusioned because recent wars of that time were mostly just easy colonial victories, or was there any other precedents for this, of soldiers from medieval and early modern periods looking forward to battle? I understand this probably greatly depends on each soldier and each battle, but let's say that if odds of winning were good and there was some looting to be done after the battle, could the majority of the soldiers of the expected winning side enjoy the conflict or was that always something they had to get through to enjoy their reward?
In the early middle ages in n. western Europe (I'm speaking specifically about the period roughly between 500-800), 'war' often meant little more than a glorified cattle raid. You'd get together with the local guys, rough up a neighbor, maybe get a few cuts and bruises, and basically have a good camping trip. Guy Halsall argues that this kind of periodic 'warfare' was essential to remind everyone of their military obligations and cement the authority of the local elites (whose power depended on being able to pull an army together). You might also gather together for hunts to 'practice' warfare on easier prey, which meant you'd end the day getting drunk and eating your fill of fresh meat back at your lord's hall.
You can only raid your neighbors so often (or be raided back, in turn) before tensions build up too far and it becomes time for a serious fight, though. If you read through early medieval Frankish chronicles, it seems like there would be a more serious war every generation or so where you'd experience more meaningful political consequences and a lot more bloodshed. This would, presumably, be far less enjoyable for most participants - Gregory of Tours records some of the fallout from these larger wars, and makes them sound miserable.
We don't, ultimately, have any texts written about the things that happened inside a campaign (all the chronicles are vague, saying things like, 'they went to war this year'), so we don't have direct accounts of how the average fighter felt about battle. All the great war poems like Beowulf were written several hundred years later, so the joyous feasting culture they celebrate is more historical fiction than reliable fact. Yet it seems that small-scale 'wars' were meant to work like social glue for bonding men in a community together, and I think it's likely that these activities, while not entirely without risk, would have been exciting experiences (at least for the side doing the raiding).
Guy Halsall, Warfare and Society is a good starting place to read more about the role of violence in the early middle ages.