On my second deployment an EOD guy (soldier whose job is to get rid of explosives, very skilled and dangerous work) died because he was standing in line at a dining facility on a major, relatively safe base, during a re-supply mission, and a mortar randomly fell on him. I think about that a lot.
A lot of military life is spending years thinking about how you're maximizing your chances of survival by being physically fit, knowing your weapons and tactics, being a good shot, using your gear the correct way, and then you go to war and half the deaths are someone was unlucky that day.
I have a really hard time anyone says God "saved them for a reason" when they were at war because in their minds God just said fuck all those other people I guess.
Maybe it's a way to impose meaning on what seems utterly random and uncontrollable, like your EOD soldier. At some point on the FOB, the IDF just feels more or less random, and if someone gets hit feels like cosmic chance, especially when, as you point out, there's no agency in getting hit or not.
One of my takeaways from reading Black Hawk Down was how devastating it was to the young Rangers when one of the Delta operators got shot in the head. They'd been envisioning these invincible supersoldiers and were abruptly confronted with war is just chaos and anyone can die
And don't get us started on athletes. Sure, God just blocked for you on that 2 yard run in the 2nd preseason game when they could've been saving someone's life at the same time in countless other places.
I always heard that as "it's not the bullet with your name on it that you need to be afraid of, it's all the ones addressed 'to whom it may concern'..."
Was reading how the first casualty in the operation to secure two bridges in Normandy was a guy who was ejected from the glider when it crash landed and fell unconscious into the river.
