Humor sometimes helps combatants get through difficult times.

Armed forces personnel in hot spots and on dangerous terrain have a way of operating under the aegis of grim combat practicality. They prepare for the best, expect the worst and try to be ready to face each challenge as it arises.

Typical of the kind of black humor that emerges from people involved in conflict is the caption under a World War II Bill Mauldin cartoon showing a sergeant standing amid a group of weary infantry men. Says the grizzled sergeant to the group: “I’m looking for a couple guys who don’t owe me money to volunteer for a scouting patrol.”

Men in such conditions don’t strive to be injured or killed, but that possibility always exists and they cope with it as best they can. Humor, no matter how grim, helps.

A recent dispatch from Kuwait by Peter Baker of the Washington Post reflects how realistically our modern warriors react to the prospects of peril.

Baker describes how troops at a U.S. camp in the Kuwaiti desert handled a recent gas mask drill, designed to keep them as safe as possible if chemical or biological agents are used against them.

“We’re not watching it on TV anymore. We’re here,” said one participant. “The thought really comes home to you when you’re this close.”

Baker explains that the forces don’t like to talk about the dangers with families or even among themselves. He adds: “But no matter how much training they get or how many drills they perform, nothing terrifies the soldiers here like the prospect of chemical attack.”

While today’s troops may not admit it openly, the prospect of encounters with sarin or anthrax assaults preys on their minds. Typical response: Offered the choice, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Sayres, 21, Morgantown, W. Va, would rather take “a lot of bullets” than a gas attack. “If a bullet hits me, it’d be a lot less painful than chemical agents,” he commented matter-of-factly. “Kill me faster, too.”

“But that would be preferable,” added a bunkmate, who drew general assent from colleagues.

Here are people on the front lines, knowing what they face, showing courage and commitment and trying to devise ways to deal with what might happen. Those who have never been through such a scenario have no notion what they feel and how draining it can be just to cope.

Yet they do it, even if reluctantly, for their own pride, the support of their comrades and the people back home.

It’s been said that a hero or heroine in wartime is someone who does the best he or she possibly can and does it five minutes longer than everyone else.

We are deeply blessed to have such people standing up for us and we can only hope that future conditions don’t dictate that their heroism is celebrated posthumously.