There's a sense of pragmatic-ness. A feeling over the jump in heart rate, the surge of adrenaline, that "Okay. so that's what this is." A sense of, calm acceptance and that it would be okay.

I'm a double combat veteran and have unfortunately seen more than a few people die; you got it right where others have been overly dramatic.

The people who are calm, serene even, that's scary.

We had a medic who got shrapnel all through his body during a patrol, so he had to give the other Soldiers help about what to do when he was bleeding out.

This was while they were still taking fire, but even then they said he was completely calm, even when blind and missing two legs and an arm.

We eventually got him medevaced out, but his injuries were too bad.

I'm grateful for the flight medic on the dustoff having been one of the guys he'd gone through school with, so he had someone with him when he died.

That was one of the harder ones we had.