Reply #6: My Lai Pilot Hugh Thompson would probably disagree with you [View All]

[Adsos Letter]

that it is the leaders who make decisions, and not the grunts.

"They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the U.S. soldiers to prevent more killings."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5133444

Edited to add (after some careful consideration of the flame-potential) a couple of other points:

My M-I-L is Jewish, and feels a definite connection to the Holocaust; however, the status of simply being Jewish doesn't IMHO ONLY automatically give you special credibility above others in judging those actions. If you, or close family members, were in Germany during WWII, then that statement would need to be modified.

American soldiers ARE trained to follow orders; they are also trained in the difference between a lawful order, and an unlawful one and, theoretically at least, one is protected from prosecution for failure to obey an unlawful order. This was obviously not the case in Germany during WWII.

I would argue, again IMHO ONLY that soldiers who commit atrocities, even under orders, are, in a broader sense, choosing a side.