After brutal days in Iraq and elsewhere, Donald Sensing ponders what's coming next.
I wonder what is going through the minds of American Marines and soldiers in Iraq now. War is bitter, bloody business. The longer it goes on, the more inhibitions are shed. Acts once shunned as cruelty become almost passé. It was Stephen Ambrose, I think, who related that near the end of the second world war a platoon of GIs came upon about 30 German soldiers hiding in a ravine several feet deep. The Germans threw up their hands. The Americans gunned them all down.Posted by Alan at May 12, 2004 03:22 PMAn American medic related that in North Africa, the German and American medics would often assist each other in treating all the wounded after a firefight, without regard to nationality. By the time the war moved into France, he said, the medics would shoot at each other.
... if the combat is not soon ended, the terrorists (or so-called "militants" or "insurgents") will learn something else: they have made the war personal. When that happens, the American experience of war shows that our troops will shed the veneer of restraint like a snake's skin. And for every American head Zarqawi severs, he will soon find three of his own men's heads.