My paternal grandfather served as reconnaissance with the Trailblazers in Europe. He never talked about the war when I was growing up, and only in his last years did he talk about some of his experiences. One thing he did related was having German prisoners, captured for interrogation, shot trying to bring them back across American lines. It bothered him greatly.
He also spoke of having to kill German soldiers who were just kids. He was born in ‘24 so he himself was only barely in his 20s.
Sometime around 1995, a bizarre romanticization of World War II took hold in the American consciousness. It probably had something to do with the 50th anniversary of the end, and the knowledge that most of the remaining veterans would soon be gone. When I was growing in Queens, virtually every man my father’s age was a WW-2 vet, the impression they made on me was that the only thing about World War II worth celebrating was its end.