“Many soldiers, it seems, harbor no ill will towards the foot soldiers on the other side. Not after peace, when time and distance have given them perspective.”
My hardscrabble farmer uncle Harry was Army in the Pacific and he was a POW in a Japanese camp for most of the war. He hated the Japanese until the day he died; and that was in the 80s. God rest his soul, he spent the the bulk of the war in a living hell.
My dad was with Patton’s Thrid Army...He stayed in Europe after the war for a little over a year as an MP Lt...
He liked the German people and said hat a lot of the German soldiers were NOT Nazis, but were common German draftees...
He said he agreed with what General Patton had said after the war about re-arming the German people and driving out the Russians...