Posted on 05/24/2014 6:01:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
“I, for one, will never forgive the Germans or trust them. As far as I know, the Germans have never asked the world’s forgiveness or apologized. They still owe the civilized world, basically the Allies, bigtime.”
You cannot forgive them if you weren’t the injured party anyway. Anyone who wants to hold that part of history against the perpetrators is fine by me; holding their grandchildren responsible for it is absurd & immoral. Any conversation about “owing” should take into account the debt the Germans incurred from WWI; it played no small role in bringing about WWII. The Allies felt they were “owed” something by Germany after WWI - how did that work out? A continent divided between fascism and communism...
I've lived in Germany as an adult for 3 years. Their self-abasement has gone so far its unhealthy. Saying that Germany and Germans have contributed to civilization is verboten. Germany is the root of all evil and any sign of patriotism is denounced. This is sick. And it was sick when I first experienced it in 1975.
But in doing so you accept the possibility that you will be killed, which is what happened.
And the repeated offer of surrender is not just nothing. It changes the moral logic. Did the Germans who machine gunned the lifeboats offer the possibility of surrender first? I'll bet not. Therefore Forrest is not like the Germans.
And unlike Malmedy it wasn't a case of slaughtering prisoners.
So I guess I'm not sure you have a point.
A lot of mythology has been printed about Sand Creek.
Many years ago TIME-LIFE published a series of books on the Westward expansion and republished these myths as facts, completely ignoring that those “facts” had been disproven over a hundred years before by government investigation.
The US Army was thrilled with what happened at Sand Creek, but Chivington became a disliked figure by the Army, not because of the massacre but because he did not kill as many Indians there as he reported he did.
The Indian Wars of 1864 by Lt Ware.
You accept the possibility that you will be killed in action, but not that you will be simply murdered.
And unlike Malmedy it wasn't a case of slaughtering prisoners
It actually depends on the motivation. If Forrest shot those men only because they were trying to escape, then Fort Pillow wasn't like Malmedy.
But if Forrest shot them because they had earlier refused to surrender, or because they were Negro troops, then yep, it was a Malmedy.
I suppose it boils down to this: did Forrest order the shooting of the men who had surrendered and weren't trying to escape? To this day, that question is being debated.
Trying to escape to fight another day is an action.
If they weren’t prisoners, then nope, it wasn’t a Malmedy.
If Forrest ordered the shooting the men who had surrendered then of course that changes everything.
the men = of men
They also became fast allies. Learned our form of government. learned our industrial methods. And beat us fair and square in the electronics industry!
Gee. That sound like the US under obama and the MSM...
Not true.
The military was fully segregated from the Civil War through WWII, with black outfits (almost) entirely led by white officers.
Black Jack Pershing of WWI fame received his name because of his service with 10th Cavalry, one of the Buffalo Soldier black regiments.
Oddly, we had many mixed regiments during our Revolution.
Sand Creek was done by Colorado Militia volunteers, not regular US Army troops.
Of late, I’ve read several books about Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. “Son Of The Morning Star” and several others. In those books, the authors do not omit or attempt to rationalize the savage practices of the Plains Indians towards their enemies. I wish those books could be standard reading in college history courses...even though a few of them are obviously biased towards the Indians.
My dad said that his Light Cruiser spent about 90 minutes trying to talk some Japanese survivors to surrender and come on board, but with no success, so they machine gunned them and got back under way.
I get annoyed when people make fun of the 7th Cavalry, because they were American GIs fighting for us, and I usually ask how the American POWs were treated by the victors in that battle, as people so enthusiastically praise the Indians as the good guys and almost heroes.
Same reason Kit Carson wasn’t?
...and they smelled of elderberry...
--Hobbs
War is Hell!
That is correct.
I’m unclear on how this makes a difference relative to the vast majority of Union forces at the time, which were also volunteers, not regulars.
Yep, there you go. War is hell. You do your due diligence and let the chips fall.
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