In my experience, you have to decide that you are already dead before you enter the danger zone.
If you spend your time worried about your own personal survival, you are no good to yourself or those around you (ref Murphy's Law of Combat).
If you happen to survive, great. But fighting without having accepted your death is nearly impossible - you can't concentrate on the mission.
It doesn't just apply to the warrior mentality of combat. Accepting death applies to the warrior mentality of life too. My friends are busy having a midlife crisis because they are unable to accept their certain mortality. I've already been through that, so I'm blessed with calm and acceptance, even though immortality has it's instinctive appeal.

Thanks for supporting the military. Soldiers need hugs!

Brian
U.S. Army retired

On the battlefield, the soldier's individual beliefs don't matter. Your job is to stay alive, protect your group, and stop those guys who are shooting at you.
The decision to operate on cultural beliefs rests many paygrades above the people carrying guns. A few years back I was walking through a minefield in Columbia. I was there because I was ordered to be there. Those mines don't care who my God is, and the mines would have no problem sending me to him. A week later I was standing in a trench with a borrowed AK47 waiting for an attack. Whoever came over that hill would walk into a wall of lead, be they Catholics, Communists, Maoists, or Mercs. My AK47 was loaded with equal opportunity rounds.
My war was the "War on Drugs", so nobody accused us of being anti-anything as far as religious beliefs are concerned. Still, it was Richard Nixon who started the war, according to his belief that America should not be snorting coke at the Disco. Decide for yourself if his decision was based on religious or cultural beliefs.
I believe we should legalize it and tax it. I haven't gotten around to trying drugs, so it seems my belief is that YOU should be taxed (if you are some sort of drug fiend. If you aren't a fiend, go about your business).

Brian
U.S. Army retired

Murphy's Law of Combat - Anything you do in combat can get you killed, including doing nothing.