Though I still don’t think our greatest generation deserves indiscriminate praise. Recall the Pacific air commander saying to McNamara - “if we lose this war, they’ll try us as war criminals.” That because we fire-bombed most of Japan’s major cities, indiscriminately killing any and all civilians who got in the way.

Of more interest to me is the good and decent people who find themselves running death camps or slaughtering villages full of children and other noncombatants. Some old German fellow said on a documentary about the SS - “these were ordinary people, the baker, the shoemaker, who suddenly found themselves caught up in this heinous mob of bloodthirsty murderers.” Amazing to me, but is it any different from the slaughter of Native Americans, or post-Civil War southern Blacks.

I don’t think I could kill Anne Frank, or a little Vietnamese kid; but I’ve served in the military. They change you; they effectively re-shape your thinking, your judgment, your willingness to obey and believe whatever you’re told. We regard the Krauts and Nips as evil; but just as easy to raise your kids to believe that about spics, kikes, bucks and squaws, nigrahs, gooks, and diaper heads.

The real evil was in allowing government officials and the media to perpetrate these myths. Back in ’33, and now in ought 7. It’s Germany’s shame, and America’s shame. Either we run the country, or the country runs us.