Surely millions of Americans,mostly men,have served well and in so doing,made the nation and world better.But every unit had its shady characters,a very few crossed way over the lines of acceptable behavior for civilized people.The fact that 99.999% of American servicemen don't rape,murder,and rob doesn't mean we should ignore those who did.
Good military men covering and excusing the real atrocities committed by bad military men is no different in principle than the often-decried apparent refusal of police officers and police unions to weed out the bad cops who abuse authority and fellow citizens.
Ignoring a problem won't make it go away;if anything ,it will grow.
Every honorable person who served ,as well as every citizen, should be embarrassed at those soldiers who committed gross wrongs and the politicians who often ordered those wrongs.
Care to explain the justice of the Trail of Tears -which was ordered by a U.S. president?Care to explain how the firebombing of Dresden was effective in reducing Nazi weapons production since it wasn't an industrial city?Care to justify the Union Army's wholesale burning of southern homes and food by the revered Sherman? Or the merciless shelling of Southern civilians by Union artillery in Vicksburg and Virginia?The U.S cavalry attacks on Indian villages that were not at war with the white nation in the 1870s?
Or let's remember the bellicose Teddy Roosevelt and his friends and the Spanish -American War which was started on very flimsy ,if not fabricated, evidence;evidence which the Navy towed out to sea and sank to keep it secret.
There is nothing so honorable as fighting righteously to defend oneself,one's family,one's nation ,or one's friends from attack by evil forces;conversely,it is entirely dis-honorable to fight simply to acquire another's wealth,or territory, or access to markets.
Was there ever a time that they were not given that training?
Many of us freepers can vouch for that training going back to our time in service into the early 1960s and it definitely predates that so I fixed your history there.
"The post-World War II occupation of Germany was a huge and diverse undertaking spanning almost eleven years, conducted in conjunction with three other members of the wartime alliance and involving in various degrees a number of US governmental departments and agencies. The occupation was, moreover, a major event in German history and in the history of the postwar world; and for the Army it was a mission second only in scope and significance to the war itself. The subject of the present volume is that Army mission, its origin, the manner in which it was defined, and its execution to June 1946 in the period of primary Army responsibility."
"The narrative begins in the 1930s, before the outbreak of war in Europe, and concludes in mid-1946, a little more than a year after the victory. Although the likelihood of US military forces occupying Germany appeared infinitesimal in the late 1930s and only slightly greater in the first two years of the 1940s, the actions taken in those years were in some ways more significant than the subsequent mission-oriented plans and preparations. It was, of course, most important that the Army, albeit somewhat reluctantly, had recognized the need for civil affairs-military government doctrine and training before the requirement to administer occupied territory was placed upon it. This recognition was a true innovation in the conduct of military affairs."