By replicating hostile conditions over and over and over again, the army are
creating new default behaviors and increasing the likelihood that the soldiers
fight or flight response wont kick in when the real shit hits the fan.
Having a bunch of freaked out loons running around with sub-machine guns
killing each other is terribly bad for the armed forces recruitment business.
What all this means is if you have panicked in the past under certain
circumstances there is a very high probability that you will do so again if the
same situation arises. Unless that is, you adopt a completely different strategy.
Note: According to Gavin de Becker in the very cool „Gift of Fear‟ there have
been numerous distressing cases of people trying to dial 911 from their cell
phone during a life or death emergency such as an armed invader in their
home, only for them to fail to hit send. The belief is that these people had years
of using a traditional phone where it wasn‟t necessary to hit send and in their
panic they reverted to previous patterns of behavior.