The title of this thread is, "How do you deal with a panic attack?"

Normal fear is NOT a bad thing. Fear keeps me alive. However, panic is a debilitating type of fear. According to Dictionary.com, panic means "a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior..." If fear becomes panic and I can't operate effectively, that's a bad thing.

All due respect to military training, but I think the military is interested in different objectives than someone who is merely trying to survive. The military often goes on missions where "mission accomplished" is more important than keeping everybody alive. In many military missions, it is known that you will probably die. Consider, for example, the storming of the beaches of Normandy. If a person's objective was to stay alive, then the correct thing to do would be not to get off the boat, not to go on the mission, or not to be in the military at all.

It would be advantageous for the military to ELIMINATE fear entirely from a soldier if they could. So, they train to do so as best as they can. In contrast, for a survival situation, where the objective is to stay alive, eliminating fear entirely would be a bad thing. It's an important distinction.