Re: We Were Soldiers

TALKING WITH OLD LANDSERS IN THE 60S (brothers, uncles, cousins, fathers
of girlfriends, as well as drinking buddies) was  an education.

their war with the RUSSIANS was every bit as  horrible as the ALLIES war
against the JAPANESE.

also the  guerilla war in GREECE and the BALKANS was apparently waged
with the same  blood thirstyness by all 
combatants.

WILLI (?) SCMIDT (?)s CROSS OF IRON TRILOGY  followed very much what i
heard  from these vets. also avery old	book called STALINGRAD written
in the late 40s or early 50s  by a German vet).

SVEN HASSO's  stories  sounded right at first, then started  off into
the realms of weirdness.

(some of this  could be to faulty memory or bad soldier info during the
war-like his being  convinced he  fought  US MARINEs in Italy)

BUT. . .

since i have been to MY WAR , saw and  experienced things that most
folks who are non-combatants would not believe or f could not believe,
i look at any soldier's  account of his  war with an open mind .

a combat soldier's view of events is not the same as an author or that
of a general or staff officer with all of the info at hand.

many times, a soldier never knows  WHY, is never  certain as to WHERE,
or even WHEN, or WHAT THE RESULTs of a battle are outside of his own
combat space and time.

and this  space is limited; tunnel vision, my and my buds versus THEM,
in  a  warped time frame.

i met a few  unreformed NAZIs when i was in GERMANY, but most of the
folks were -just folks! nothing more or less.

some of the old  soldiers  wanted nothing to do with Americans ,
probably based on war experiences just like some old American soldiers
want nothing to do with Germans  long ater the	war.

ditto for Japanese , Noeth Korens  and Chinese.

and this is  how i feel toward NVA/VC and their government.

LOL (grimly) i was not much in love  with the South Viet policians,
civilian police, some of the  civies, and most of their  armed forces
either.

As well as some of my own!  

STILL!