Today's training was scarier than yesterday's.

Yesterday, we were a unit under fire and had to learn how to deal with it. For the most part, that means ignoring the noise, not thinking about the fact that someone is trying to kill you, finding cover, making sure you and your comrades are protected and focussing on the objective.

Today we were individuals under fire and had to decide whether we were the target or not. And whether to retaliate. Or not.

The moment our instructor added those last words, our faceless opponents became human. I couldn't see them, but all of a sudden there was not just a punk with a gun, but a man with a name and a family. And yes, he was shooting at us - at me and the comrades I had vowed to protect.

Still, deciding whether to use terminal force or find another way to stop the man from attacking us took a surprising amount of time and effort. For every single one of us. And yes, we do need to be able to assess situations much faster than that.