Reply #67: still missing the point I made

[jollyreaper2112]

Yes, there have been accounts of western suicidal actions when all is lost. There was another account from WWII of an American pilot crashing his aircraft into the turret of a Japanese cruiser. But again, this was after the aircraft was so shot up that the pilot was as good as dead.

Read what I said:

There's just a peculiar notion in western minds that there's a big difference between a dangerous mission where death is almost a certainty and a mission that requires your death in order to complete it. That slim, impossible hope of survival makes all the difference.

No westerner has a problem with the idea of "If you're as good as dead, may as well take some of the bastards with you." And among our demented citizens, murder-suicides are common. But This is talking about sane, rational people deliberately setting out on a suicidal mission that requires death in order to complete the mission. That pilot did not set out expecting to die.

There were many operations in WWII that were very, very dangerous. Look at the daylight bombing raids over Europe. But even when the bombers were taking 15% casualties, that's a whole lot better than a kamikaze operation which is looking at roughly 99% casualties, excepting the escorts and planes that turned back for mechanical problems. The American bomber pilots said "Until you drop those bombs, you're flying for Uncle Sam; after that, you're flying for yourself."

To put it another way, the difference between your example and the kamikazes is the difference between the soldier impulsively jumping on a grenade to save his squad vs. training up dedicated grenade-jumpers and putting them in the squad just like riflemen, corpsmen, and radiomen.