Replies

I understand the context.

WWII was total war.

After seeing what the Nazis did to Rotterdam at the beginning of the war (not to mention the Japanese in Nanking) it was pretty clear to the rest of the world what was going to happen to anyone who resisted the Axis.

I suppose it was like seeing two people fighting, one is fighting by Queensbury Rules, and the other, with no provocation, kicks him in the privates, and smashes his face in while he lies helpless on the ground. If you are the next person in line to fight, your reaction is likely to be “Okay, that is how it is. If I have anything to do with it, I am not going to be the one on the ground holding my crotch as my face is kicked in. He is going to get the boot first...”

Anyone who thinks that atrocities don’t happen on all sides in a war simply hasn’t experienced it, or taken the time to look closely at it. I remember a quote from someone that said something like “One of the most brutal things in the world is your average nineteen-year-old American soldier with a gun” and I think that is likely true. The Marines in the Pacific weren’t fighting under the glare of the watchful eyes of civilization out there in the Pacific, and many of the “rules” went out the window. But as Eugene Sledge said in an interview I saw, there wasn’t a moral equivalence. He said that while he saw our soldiers commit brutal sadistic acts, but it wasn’t the norm. However, the quantity and the brutality of the Japanese WAS the norm for them, in his experience. On their side, it was universal and widespread.

But I do understand the point you make. When war comes, nobody is spared on any side.

Thanks for the clarification.