I will happily argue that a large part of any kind of emergency responder training is getting the students into the correct "Can we fix it? Yes we can"" state of mind, and that sharing war stories is a vital part of that. If one recent graduate finds themself dealing with a tricky emergency and says to themself "this isn't nearly as bad as it could be" or "At least I'll get a good story out of this mess", the in-class war stories are worth it.

Also, emergency response can be divided into two basic categories: skills that can be taught, and the inventiveness needed to apply them to complex and unique situations, which can't. The best they can do is give the students a bunch of examples and hope the students can generalize.