[WalterBright]

I tentatively agree that character isn't built by extreme hardships. But I do suspect that being shot at would determine what kind of a man you are, and there's no way to know that in advance.

For example, being a navigator, my father sat up front behind the bombardier. There's a plexiglass hemisphere in the nose. The Me-109's favorite attack plan was the head on attack (because the B-17's had a gap in coverage in the front). He said you can see the cannon flash as they fired at him (usually aiming for the pilots, who were right behind my father's position, thinking "how can they miss".

What would you do in such a situation? Nobody can tell in advance.