Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.
Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.
For two years, all you have to do is go where they tell you, stay behind your rifle, and kill and not be killed. It's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy.
Well, I once recall an old master sergeant once telling me that NCOs look after the men so that officers can figure out how to get them killed. That's the difference between maintenance and command.