Combat units build false comfort until a close casualty forces reality

Evidence

Sami was thinking about how they had become almost cavalier in their attitudes, since nobody they were close to had gotten hurt in the war. They believed that everything was going to be all right, that it was basically work, gym, and TV until they got back to California. And then this happened. … Reality set in. They were still in Iraq. They weren’t going anywhere. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 274