[He hums. Faith unsettles him, even as it fascinates him. It's one of those characteristics that he's become too alien to understand, but he can see very clearly how deadly too much belief can be.]

In nearly every soldier, when they get on the ground, the dedication stops being about abstract ideals. It boils down to fighting to save your own life--or the lives of the men around you, I hear that one a lot. Loyalty is as fine a razor as God is.

Maybe someone with the tenacity of a priest could manage to set fire to villages--that's a large point of contention in my war--and still believe they're right, though. To use an example from your time, the Germans certainly seemed to believe in themselves, no matter what they were actually doing.