I was scared when I was a 19 year old doing a patrol through Sadr City in 2003, while manning the .50 cal and having dozens of kids suddenly show up and throwing rocks at me. Did I waste them even though I would have been justified because it wasn’t uncommon that patrols would go through markets and peopled start throwing produce and mix a grenade in?
No. Because I was well trained and realized that life is precious. And I was dealing with those rocks a lot longer than 1.6 seconds.