They were at least distracting. Yes and no. Huntsmen and Huntresses are trained to fight the Grimm. They are creatures without souls that are set on destroying everything in their path. They are drawn by negative emotions. We protect everyone from them. You can't expect people to stop experiencing negative emotions anyway. I was in the military for a while, though, before James asked me to lead the Ace Operatives. We're a sort of specialist group that protects Atlas and Mantle. We were picked for our general fighting skills and our semblances.