Over and over again – and I have video of this – guys will stand up and risk getting hit in order to do their job up in the platoon and keep everyone safe.  They’re choosing to participate in a potentially suicidal act in order to safeguard everyone else.  That is a very profound choice that a person makes for the welfare of another person.  Putting someone else’s welfare above your own – it’s at the heart of combat, but ironically it’s also at the heart of much of religious thought.  There are real parallels between the two.

From a series of interviews with Sebastian Junger on his new book, War, based on his time embedded with embedded with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, making five trips to the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan.  Watch a portion of the interview here.