I’m 61 and as a boy almost all my peers dad’s were WWII vets
As a young cowboys and Indians or rebs and Yankees or us versus krauts or japs
We’d always ask how many folks they killed ....most took it in stride knowing we were grade school
The usual answer was I was too busy ducking I couldn’t tell or I’m not really sure they were far off
One man though who was career marine and was a lt colonel by 1934-64 at that point and had done the Pacific island hopping campaign
He looked square in the eyes and told me more than I could count son....they just kept coming...they were fanatics.....we were lucky we whooped em.
I never forgot that man his dad was like superhero to all of us in the neighborhood
Course nobody ever brought it up again
My uncle killed a young jap in Borneo in a clearing face to face...he took the boys personals and mailed them to his family after VJ Day
It bothered him
My father’s best friend was in a Japanese PW camp in the Philippines. He was a doctor but still almost starved to death. My sister and I loved him more than any other of my parents’ friends—he had been there, he was deep, he had seen it. I’ll never ever forget Johnny.