Justified

"One morning when I was in I Corps, we found a dead Cong who'd stepped in a punji pit in the dark. Thing about punji sticks, they're not meant to kill. A dead soldier reduces the force against you by one, but a wounded soldier slows down a whole unit. Cong used to cover their stakes with human shit, make the wounds infect. But rather than being a drag on his comrades, make them carry him back, this feller just decided to put a gun in his mouth. One man dies so the others can live. Anybody can run a peacetime command. Real leadership's about making the hard choices."