It sounded like you were saying that our US soldiers should have executed the ones who surrendered w (hands up no weapons), versus killing those who fight to the end.
That would be very short sighted.
“...It sounded like you were saying that our US soldiers should have executed the ones who surrendered w (hands up no weapons),...”
No, I said If you catch a guy planting IEDs, sniping at our guys, actively engaged in combat against our people, he should not be treated to a taxpayer-funded vacation at Club Gitmo. You waste him on the spot.
But - It DID happen in WWI and WWII as well. German machine gunners in BOTH wars were notorious for firing their weapon until it ran dry, killing our guys by the score, then throwing up their hands and yelling “KAMERADE!!!”. They were killed on the spot. Hell, I have a book about the PA 28th Infantry Division written in 1919 about combat in the Argonne, by soldiers who were there, and it says it was commonplace to just shoot those gunners outright, surrendering or not.
And in the Pacific in WWII, the Marines - my uncles included - didn’t try to take them prisoner unless they were ordered to for intelligence purposes. They KNEW that Bushido demanded that the Japanese kill himself rather than surrender. So they didn’t bother with formalities. That guy’s job was to kill as many Americans as he could, then die gloriously for Dai Nippon and the Emperor...
It’s difficult to say what one should or shouldn’t do, when we weren’t there. We can only speculate how we would react.
But as a personal policy... for me, it would matter a GREAT deal to me that my buddies and I would come home alive, rather than worrying about the other guy.
If his hands are in the air, and he so much as BLINKS the wrong way, well... too bad. Would you take the chance that he DOESN’T have a suicide belt on, or a grenade taped to his stomach under the shirt?
Patton had it right. Make the other dumb bastard die for his country, or ideology, or whatever.