Dishonoring the Fallen
Tony Stark
Like many of kids in my generation, I grew up on my grandfather's war stories from the Pacific.
My grandfather never talked much about heroics, he simply related experiences, and those that stuck out most to me were the war crimes of the Japanese on Guadalcanal. The viciousness of the Imperial Japanese, the brutality of their tactics, the twisted manipulations of common decency, hit hard and shaped my own moral compass. Perhaps no story hit more so than using the flag of the red cross to protect their big guns. My grandfather was a fighter, a man who possessed all the fears and anxieties that we sll possess, but who still signed up to fight, to kill the enemy and to protect America. And for all of the patriotism, for that love of country, he was not blind to morality like some claim we must. He never murdered civilians, he never made sport out of a fight for his life. He never slaughtered the helpless whether they were in uniform or otherwise.
He feared atomic war, and he understood the horrors of violence to know that some things simply should not be done in the name of fighting for one's country.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/dishonoring-fallen
