Also, if we didn’t dismiss suicide bombers out-of-hand, the western world might have to ask itself some very difficult questions. Much easier to simply claim they’re all cowards and kooks and leave it at that.

Of course, if you actually believe your god will reward you for martyrdom, then courage has nothing to do with it. Still, I believe that is an overly simplistic explanation for the kamikaze mentality. There is more to it than that, I don’t think even radical Islamists actually believe that 72 virgins crap, any more than Japanese pilots believed they would be rewarded in the afterlife. I don’t think their religion even had an afterlife. These people aren’t stupid, just different. Its more subtle and complex than that, and other forms of motivation are at play here.

As for the courage of pilots, I don’t think it can be questioned, IF there is a good chance they can be shot down. The WWII experience was that pilots experienced severe psychological problems the more missions they flew, they knew a painful death (usually by being burned alive) was inevitable if the war was a long one. Americans solved the problem by limiting the number of missions before you were transferred to other duties. But of course, we could afford it. We can see the toll endless repeated deployments are taking on our troops now.

Until these measures were introduced, US bomber crew casualties were unsustainable. A similar situation arose with German U-boat crews. By the end of the Battle of the Atlantic, when all the technical advantages were with the Allies, a berth on a Kriegsmarine sub was a death sentence. German submarine crews suffered the highest proportional casualty rates of any military unit in the war.

Navy service is generally more comfortable and safer than the infantry, but in WWII that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Of course, if you’re going to die anyway, being in an air conditioned office, with clean clothes, a recent shower, and a full belly, does have its advantages.