The discussions here have focused on the situations where the never-say-die, raging-against-the-night attitude have won out, but there many cases where the "calm, Buddhist-like acceptance" works out best, or at least well enough to achieve a good outcome. Typically it is a situation where the individual is indeed in serious straits and needs to summon aid and/or sit tight with calm, Buddhist-like acceptance, faced with, say, a river in flood stage in the winter time, or downed power lines. (just to pick a couple of hypotheticals at random)

It is really all about making decisions that are appropriate for the situation and not applying a "standard" strategy. We should all take Ecclesiastes to heart - there is a time for everything under the sun - a time for extreme exertion and a time for rest. This is true for survival situations and it is also true in the complementary activity of SAR. Rushing into action is not always the best course. Sometimes it is best to sit down and think or take less physical action. The trick is to know which strategy is appropriate to the circumstances - often it is best to switch drastically form one to the other as the situation evolves.

For that matter, that is probably true of matters military - I am fortunately not experienced enough in that arena to comment meaningfully. I would say, based on my two years military service (at a very low level) that it is not at all like SAR or survival training. It is an entirely different ethos - very few of my mentors or contemporaries in SAR had any military time.

I would infer from your comments above that you have little or no direct military experience.