Aftermath of an attack

I've always had a nebulous understanding that one of the toughest things for a soldier to deal with must be the death or serious injury of a close friend in combat.  I imagine them being racked by questions:  Did I do anything wrong?  Was there anything I could've done differently to prevent it?  Why was it him (or her) instead of me?

It has always been a distant concept, though, until now.  My son-in-law could very well be dealing with these questions, and many more that I've never had to consider.

Here's the thing: we can kill ourselves agonizing over the "what ifs" that surround any particular set of circumstances.  Yes, if you actually screwed up and someone was hurt or has died as a result this is a lot harder.  Decent people have a hard time accepting forgiveness for their fallibility in the face of someone else being hurt by our errors, even if the lapse was understandable rather than a case of actual negligence (or worse).  It seems that we have a harder time accepting mercy ourselves, even when we don't deserve condemnation, than we do in meting it out to others.

Beyond that, we sometimes forget that every set of circumstances is different.  We're trained to do certain things, to obey instructions (orders) or perform our duties in a certain way, because those are the actions that are anticipated to bring the best results the majority of the time.  A good manager avoids managing by exception except in circumstances under which the exceptions must be managed, but the exceptions that creep through rarely have life or death implications, and the manager can usually sleep well at night knowing that she did the best she could.  When a soldier encounters an exception, or thinks he might have, people with whom he's trusted his life could lose theirs, and a devastated family is left to deal with the aftermath.  This might leave him agonizing over what he should have done differently, even when he has done exactly what he was supposed to do.

Everyone around us will suffer if we fail to find a healthy balance between diligently doing the best we can and cutting ourselves some slack for the results once we've done so.