How do representations of the soldiers reinforce or subvert the typical narrative of heroism associated with soldiers. Are they hereos or are they doing with there told to do without understanding the logic of it?

Death is so commonplace that the soldiers have become numb to the death that happens all around them. Kiowa describes seeing Ted Lavender die and says it was like watching a rock drop to the ground. There is no valour or heroism in Lavender's death. He simply drops like a rock and is dead: alive and alert and then dead. The men just smoke Lavender's dope after he is dead.