As a soldier, you have a responsibility to protect the lives of your comrades. However, you must also consider how important the operation is, and whether or not the losses are acceptable for the gain. It is legally acceptable to choose a course of action that incurs more military casualties above another option (especially in the case that this would prevent a higher number of civilian casualties, or that all things considered it would still minimise total loss of life). However just because it is legal to put your own personnel in additional peril, that obviously does not mean that you should or that your actions would necessarily be seen as professionally acceptable.

Cheryl Abbate, ‘Assuming Risk: A Critical Analysis of a Soldier’s Duty to Prevent Collateral Casualties’, Journal of Military Ethics, 13 (2014), p78.