To: WOSG
It is clear we are totally over-reacting now in the media. Some prisoners were bad, and some idiot officer somewhere decided that this kind of humiliation was appropriate. It wasnt, it was abhorrent. But it was an exception not a rule, and now we have huge amounts of handwringing, with no sense of balance nor context. No sense of balance that this humiliation is far less serious than the brutal tortures that are regular in saddam's Iraq or even in other Arab countries today. (eg practices like throwing people to lions, forcing gasoline in them and then shooting them and watching them explode, the 'grenade in the mouth' trick, the acid pourings on flesh, the burning tortures, horrible beatings, etc. Great way of putting all of this into prespective. I spent a year in Vietnam, we did not torture the North Vietnamese we captured, but I am sure some did. Everyday I hear of this atrocity or that torture that happened in WWII, Korea or Vietnam, but they are the exception and not the rule. The last time I was in Germany I had an elderly German for a friend. He had spent most of WWII as a POW in Mississippi. He was first captured by the Brits in Africa and then transferred to US custody. All treated him with respect, but there were others who were not treated well on both sides.
Again, we have to put this into prespective, prosecute the guility to the maximum allowed and then get on with the war.
150 posted on
05/06/2004 9:55:30 AM PDT by
SLB
("We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." C. S. Lewis)
To: SLB
Thanx and dittos.
And thanks for your service. If it was 12 mos in Vietnam, I guess that makes you 2.5X the hero John Kerry was. :-)
157 posted on
05/06/2004 10:02:53 AM PDT by
WOSG
(http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com - I salute our brave fallen.)
To: SLB
Quote (The last time I was in Germany I had an elderly German for a friend. He had spent most of WWII as a POW in Mississippi. He was first captured by the Brits in Africa and then transferred to US custody. All treated him with respect, but there were others who were not treated well on both sides.) Quote
My uncle was in a German prison camp for about 1 1/2 years and he said they were always treated well.
One of the guards said he had relatives in America and wanted to visit them when the war was over and jokeingly said he did not want to have his a** kicked by one of the ex prisoners if he should run across one of them on a street corner.
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