[Mithalwen]

Isnt' there that conversation where the two orcs hope to get away somewhere quiet when it is all over? Shows maybe that orcs are capable of a kind of friendship beyond mutual dependence. However having recently read "All quiet on the western front", I think that until fairly recently the survivability threshold of battlefield injuries was set at a very different height. Forget the flying ITU's the modern milatary can deploy, pre anti-biotics you might survive an amputation if you were lucky or a clean shot somewhere not absolutely vital but you were quite liable to get an infection that would kill you slowly. I guess the orcs took a pragmatic view.