[conservativecorner]

The only point that matters is that the man was mortally wounding (DYING), and the soldier did what would have been considered humane and the only decent and right thing to do in any war prior to the Vietnam debacle where the show was run by elected officials, namely Johnson and McNamara, who micromanaged our troops into a forced loss.

[muawiyah]

Seems to me this wasn't the policy before the Viet Nam War either ~ doesn't mean there weren't folks out there shooting the enemy wounded, but it wasn't American policy to do so.

Besides, war really isn't supposed to be humane!

We need to keep war as horrible as possible to deter our enemies from thinking it's a good idea ~

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

While your description is accurate for LBJ/McNamara, the fact is that many severely wounded GI's were finished off by other GI's during Vn.....by pre-arranged pacts among individual GI's.....also at times to prevent still-living but about-to-be-captured wounded GI's, to preclude torture by the VC. Many VC/NVA were also dispatched as in the story above.

War is hell....it has exigencies, imperatives, expediencies, and its own reality. This Captain got screwed.