A reply from a friend to the soldiers’ laments:
The guy who was saying how much he wanted to fight “in a war like World War II” – people forget.
Soldiers in all wars hate the war they’re fighting. During WWII, a large number of GI’s hated the war and felt it unnecessary – even JFK, when you read his diaries during his tour in the Pacific, wrote “the only reason we’re down here is to help out British Petroleum and Standard Oil”, referring to the large number of oil fields in the South Pacific. There was a movement, which is well illustrated in “Best Days Of Our Lives”, of people that called World War II “Mr. Roosevelt’s War”, which was, as the gentleman in “Best Years” a war for “British and Communists”. This same viewpoint was pressed by Harvard and “Eastern” intellectuals who were isolationist. Now we see Warner Brothers movies making the combat seem glorious – but then again, Jack Warner was an ardent Democrat and Roosevelt supporter.
It wasn’t until the 1950’s that suddenly World War II became this huge patriotic exercise, unbelievably popular and all of those that comprised the “Greatest Generation” felt they’d actually done something to make the world a better place, although the war ended making the world just as dangerous as it was before; Stalin, arguably much worse than Hitler, was still in power, and the evaporation of European colonies gave way to genocidal Marxist states.
It hasn’t been until recently that suddenly the Nazis and Adolf Hitler are the litmus test for evil. I mean, for God’s sake, in the 1960’s they made Hogan’s Heroes on TV, which was a light hearted World War II comedy that takes place in a Luftwaffe Luftstalag with silly, incompetent Nazis.
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