It shows a conscience, a belief that we can be better, which is something that separates us from our barbaric enemies.

Crimes committed in wartime can never be anything else. But some have the interesting property of condemning you whatever you choose to do. There are situations in which the only way you can escape guilt entirely is through pure dumb luck. For example, during the Liberation of Paris, my aunt’s husband, who was a 4’11″ intelligence officer (who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6 armed with an M1 Garand) had to guard 250 German prisoners in Paris. The Germans were very nervous about the French and he told the German officer (he liked Germans) that if they stayed quiet, he’d deploy the only and only machine gun he had so it would also cover the French. Maybe he just said it to keep the German POWs from being spooked. Fortunately, it all ended happily. But here’s a mental experiment, what if the French had decided to kill the Germans? What if they rushed the POWs? Would you have opened fire? And on whom? Or would you have done nothing? An American unit in the middle of nobody’s business.

People who have been in those situations know there are times when you are forced into doing bad things. There are some who when accused, will take the 3:10 to Yuma willingly, knowing the fact they had to do whatever they did is no excuse; and understand even as they are reading out the specifications, that they are guilty as charged. If that sounds absurd, well it is.

I don’t know whether this makes sense, but it’s the only sense of it I have been able to make.