Your comment reminds me of a remark I got from one of my undergraduate history professors in the 1970s. We were in the last few weeks of a course on 20th Century Warfare, and the subject material had come around to the closing days of WWII, specifically the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
He brought up the traditional academic views: the war was already over; the Naval leaders were convinced the Japs would quit as a result of the Naval blockade; the bombs were dropped to keep the Russians from invading the Japanese home islands. Stuff like that.
I brought up to him what you have essentially cited in your comment above, because my father would have been one of those troops to hit the beaches of Japan. I was surprised by his response, not by the dogma it represented, but the contempt it show blatantly exposed. He said:
"Fortunately, the political leadership of this country does not concern itself with the problems of some sweating sergeant in a foxhole in the Pacific. The administration had more important concerns to consider."
That remark was made more than 30 years ago. But I remembered it. Word for word. To this day. Says a lot about the kinder-gentler-tolerance-and-compassion crowd, now doesn't it?