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Member |
I must go with Elk on this one. The subject of the story was a teenager during crystal night. It would be hard to make the case that he should be held responsible. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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Member |
Well, it kept 100,000 American POWs alive in Europe, for one thing. Second, a large chunk of that 425k was used as farm labor and other duties. | |||
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| Member |
All ethics aside, it seems to me that if you are sure that the enemy will kill you anyway,even if you surrender.....would create a very motivated soldier who would fight to the death, if at all possible. ( A lot of Japanese soldiers had been told that Americans were cannibals, to motivate them to fight to the death. ) Kinda like surrendering to ISIS....why surrender , only to have someone cut your head off ?? | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss  |
Every once in awhile we agree on something. War should be a last resort, but when undertaken it should be scorched earth ala' The Highway of Death, Dresden, Tokyo, etc.... Anything and everything killed until the opposition surrenders. Then? We all go home and play nice...until the next time. ________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton. | |||
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| Freethinker |
Once again I am reminded of how ignorant some people are about things that seem so obvious to me. Taking POWs is one of the things that has been recognized as the proper conduct of war—among civilized people, anyway—for centuries. Aside from the formal agreements the U.S. has entered into, how about just one? Who would you rather fight, someone who would give up at some point or someone who will fight to the last man and cartridge because they know that they will be killed no matter what they do? Killing the hundreds of thousands of men who were captured in our major wars would have cost our own side countless more resources and casualties—not to mention all those Americans who would have never come back here because they would have been killed rather than captured by the other side. And as far as going to war “voluntarily,” most major wars have been fought by conscripts who much rather would have preferred to have been anywhere but on the battlefield. Plus the simple fact is that many wars have been “no quarter” conflicts without having any significant effect on whether they were fought. Did the fact that very few U.S. ground troops were taken prisoner by the VC or NVA affect what Americans did? Not that I noticed at the time. What such policies do is help ensure that the war will just be all the more savage. ► 6.4/93.6 “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato | |||
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Ammoholic |
Settle down there cowboy. Didn't say he should be sent to the Hague and be tried for crimes against humanity, I did not say he was involved in smashing all the glass, burning our crops, or terrorizing my family. Not sure how you came up with that. He's an illegal alien, escape prisoner, who has admitted to identity theft. Then he writes a book about being the last Nazi in America. There is nothing wrong about sending him back to his home country. Same way I feel about illegal aliens from south of the boarder. I'm very sure that most are not MS-13 members, but I still don't want them here illegally and stealing people's identity. He had forty years to turn himself in, go home, and apply for residency in the US. Instead he stole someone else's identity and lived a lie in a country he had no right to live in. Do you apply the same kind of logic to the illegals from Central America? Oh, they've lived here X number of years so we can't possibly send them back to their shithole countries? I don't care how long he's lived here, he's illegal, return to sender. Jesse Sic Semper Tyrannis | |||
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| Big Stack |
So you want to inspire every enemy soldier to fight to the death, because they're going to get executed if they surrender. That's actively stupid. Get the enemy in a compromised position (like surrounded), and offer that if they surrender, they'll be treated property. That shortens things. Yeah, they have to housed and fed , but less of your people are lost than if they fight to the last man. As far as the escaped POW. I'm surprised that at some point after the situation in Europe stabilized, he didn't find his way back to West Germany, and turn himself into the W German government. I REALLY doubt they'd send him back to the DDR. This message has been edited. Last edited by: BBMW, | |||
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| Member |
^^^^ Sigfreund and BBMW are correct. War crimes are counter-productive. As are overly restrictive ROEs as well, there needs to be a balance of effective combat tempered with humane treatment of prisoners and due care to protect the local populace. Really tough to find that balance in a counter-insurgency, complicated by the fact that the balance constantly shifts based on the enemy and phase of the operation. “People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik Be harder to kill: https://preparefit.ck.page | |||
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Member |
I was hitchiking to eastern Germany right after reunification. An elderly couple picked me up, we got talking and, noticing my accent, they asked where I was from. When I said the US, the old man waxed poetic about how much he enjoyed his time as a POW on Lake Erie, he had never eaten so well in his life and it was just a great experience. They let me out at the exit for Magdeburg and I started walking toward the train station. And elderly woman on a bicycle stopped and said I looked like a foreigner (it was still very much like the old DDR then) and asked if I needed directions. When I told her I knew where I was going, she asked where I was from..... and then waxed poetic about how much her late husband enjoyed being a POW in Chesapeake, VA, had never eaten so well and came back with such fond memories of America. Yes, this all happened in the span of two hours. I have met a few Stalingrad vets, one of whom came back home from a Siberian labor camp in 1953. He had quite a different experience. | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
I love it when never dones chime in about war. Always good for a laugh or 3. Now back in the corner with your coloring books children. The adults are speaking.  | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive.  |
That's cute, never-dones, and children/adults. I like it because it's the same sort of smug assholery I employ sometimes. Right on. Good one. Or something. Settle down, Maverick, unless your service included substantial higher education on the matter your opinion is no more relevant or informed than mine. You weren't a policy maker of leader of significance. You were just another motherfucker doing what they were told. And the only (literally only) reason I didn't get to wave my "been there, done that" around too is because someone else was in charge of deployments at the time. I signed up and was ready just like you. And ignorant? Easy there, killer (get it...?) If you mean it literally, as in benign ignorance / the simple absence of knowledge, then sure... maybe... I was educated in public schools, after all. But despite my ARMY service I don't have a graduate degree from the War College, so... Keep in mind - these are random musings, off the cuff, over coffee, while the news is on and such. This may as well be a random impromptu conversation with a stranger at a bar, not some prepared position or academic argument. And if I'm mistaken, I'd love to know. Answer this, if you don't mind: * Is "an armed society is a polite society" and such notions true, in general? And if so, doesn't that mean that the risk of death itself is indeed the key factor in this notion? Is fear of a death a deterrent, or isn't it? How does that jive with death penalties and such? * Isn't the Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction predicated on the same idea, that the risk of a counter attack is so severe and life threatening that it literally deters any such attacks? Is this different, beyond the number of people involved at a given moment? * Who is less likely to get screwed with, a person who "fights fair" or one that might behead you if you start shit with them? (this one is surely rhetorical, no?) * How is "the proper conduct of war—among civilized people" not just some naive and futile notion (or worse - simple bullshit) cooked up by politicians and the like as a means to wage war more casually and more frequently? There's nothing civilized about war... * Who would you rather be stuck in a fox hole with, a person who will surrender or someone who will fight until the very end? (again, surely a rhetorical question, right?) * What's the difference between a quitter, a chicken shit, and one who surrenders? And where is the line drawn regarding when and why it's OK to surrender versus when it isn't? Should those at Bastogne have surrendered rather than sticking it out until the end? Why? * How is this different from statements about your average hood rat and police scuffles where the prevailing wisdom in some circles is - Mr Ghetto Thug should have just listened and done what Officer Friendly said and he wouldn't have gotten ventilated for "making furtive movements" or whatever? Is War intended to be more civilized than home? There seems little, to negative infinity, consistency in such ideas. Please explain.
Don't ya hate it when that happens..  As for BBMW, you're an audacious fucker to call anyone else's ideas "actively stupid". Why don't you zip it and go back to planning our national path to Orwellianism, ya loon. | |||
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| Too old to run, too mean to quit! |
I met a few of them when stationed in Germany. 3 of them had been close friends with my father in law. Got to spend some time with them, but nobody talked about their time in Russia! It was all about being home, with family and friends. At one point a German asked a question of me that I did not understand. I had not learned German yet. His question was, that he had fought against the Americans during the war, and if I wanted he would leave the party. My comment was that the war ended in 1945, and the Germans were good soldiers. And then the party really got going. BTW: The young German girl at that gasthaus has been my wife for the last 60+ years. That was the night I met her. Elk There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre. (Louis L'Amour) "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. " -Thomas Jefferson "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville FBHO!!! The Idaho Elk Hunter | |||
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| Member |
There are several WWII POW camps here in the Yoop and I made it a point to visit them. I understand that quite a few of the POWs remained here after the war and their families are still here now. End of Earth: 2 Miles Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles | |||
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Member |
I worked with an engineer who was a tank commander under Rommel. He was awarded a medal for bravery personally by Hitler early in the war. He was captured in North Africa and sent to a POW camp in Canada. After the war, he was sent back to West Germany and went to work for a U.S. company that later sent him to work at one of their facilities in the U.S. He became a U.S. citizen. U.S. Army, Retired | |||
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Charmingly unsophisticated |
I think the problem with the "If we're ruthless enough, they'll be too scared to start shit with us" theory is MOST of the time, the people that start shit aren't the ones who'll have to fight the ruthless bastards. Generally speaking, accepting surrenders and taking prisoners is a good thing (depending on METT-TC). _______________________________ The artist formerly known as AllenInWV | |||
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Member |
He did what he had been trained to do he Escaped and Evaded the enemy. He should have been deported then made to apply for citizenship to come back to the United States if that is what he wanted to do. | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
Hmmm, musta struck a cord to get you all riled up like that. Like I said...  | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower  |
Let's cut the crap, gentlemen. You're not going to hobble every discussion on the subject of WWII because of things that happened to your family. Just cool it. The first "W" in "WWII" stands for World. That means it affected many, many, many people. Just cut it out. Be civil or be quiet. ____________________________________________________ "I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023 | |||
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| Member |
I work for a German company and my boss and I discuss this stuff all the time. His family is wealthy because his grandfather built a very successful business, training dogs for the US military and eventually W. German police agencies from contacts he made while a POW. My boss says he grandfather was a true believer, said his wartime service was the best time of his life and it never really ended for him. I've run into a few guys like that too. It's a little awkward. | |||
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| Member |
POW recreation area in Saucier, MS is where i go when i want to shoot. Its a POW subcamp for camp shelby, the POWs helped the forestry service set up forestry stuff in the area | |||
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