Der aktuellste Fund meines besonderen Freundes Bartetzko:
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-so-many-veterans-embarrassed-that-they-did-not-see-combat-They-still-decided-to-serve-their-country/answer/Roland-Bartetzko?ch=17&oid=309697632&share=5c3015e3&srid=nlort&target_type=answer
A friend of mine served twelve years in the German Army, was deployed several times to Afghanistan but didn't witness any fighting there.
He once told me after a couple of beers, “what you did (i.e. joining a foreign army to fight in a war) was what we all wanted to do at the time, but most of us didn't have the balls to go through with it.”
This was the only time someone has ever told me that that they might have made the wrong decision when they were younger. My friend wasn’t embarrassed, though; he just felt a tiny bit of regret.