Petya - Quixotic or Heroic?

Petya - Quixotic or Heroic?

He was in a fairy kingdom where nothing resembled reality. [...] Nothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible. (Bk 14, Chpt 2, 932)

When Petya galloped up the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!" flashed through Petya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the raid firing could be heard. [...] Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. "Go round! Wait for the infantry!" he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him.

"Wait?...Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Petya, and without pausing a moment galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the smoke was thickest." (Bk 14, Chpt 2, 934)

Tolstoy gives us an interesting look at Petya in the time leading up to his death in the attack on the French convoy. In the moments directly before Petya is killed, he acts, at the same time, both the same as any courageous hero in the war who, impervious to the danger of his actions, rode headfirst into the front line, leading his fellow soldiers to victory through his bravery, and the same as the men who crossed the river, rather than waiting for a bridge, for Napoleon and ended up drowning. One could use the description of Petya as in a fairy kingdom for either argument, saying that the reason the men blindly drowned themselves in the river was because they were crazed and had left reality, or to say that the reason the man who lead the charge to victory could only do so by his elevated state of mind which allowed him to put the danger out of his mind and concentrate solely on creating for his self a victory.

My question is, how are we supposed to view Petya, and/or the way his (perhaps yet too immature for the battle) imagination led him to charge into battle without regard for danger, looking only for glory. Are we to assume that because he died, this is a foolish way to face our battles? Why did he die and others who did mostly the same thing not die? How were their situations different? Is this perhaps more evidence of the importance of living a real life, as Caitlin and Andrew have mentioned?