“The tale does not ... explain why the soldiers found this display of instinctive aggression inspirational rather than pointless and depressing.”
It doesn’t need to, since it’s self-evident. They found it inspirational because they needed the inspiration. It’s the same reason why we don’t critically examine the flawed logic or analogies in locker room halftime speeches. We need inspiration, someone is willing to provide it, so we suspend our disbelief. After the need has passed and the inspiration has served its purpose, we can comfortably look back, like this writer, and say “wait a second, that doesn’t quite make sense...”.
/bingo