I'm guessing you've never been in a firefight. The only thing that matters, really, is surviving, and you survive by fighting for the men on your right and on your left and they survive by fighting for you. You write as if there's a checkered flag that goes down or an alarm bell that goes off when it's "over". The problem is, you never really quite know when it's "over". On one occasion in Vietnam, there was a VC that we thought was too badly wounded to be able to do anything. The medic gave him whatever care he could. We thought the guy was unarmed. He had a grenade hidden that he set off killing himself and the medic. We never made that mistake again. There may be very little moral or honorable about that but when your motive is survival for yourself and your men, you WILL do whatever you have to do. Bottom line, if you expect morality and honor in war, you will, most of the time, be sadly disappointed.