When I arrived at my US Army post in Nha Trang, South Vietnam in May of 1968 I saw a sign that read : "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for I am the evilest son of a bitch in the Valley" (a bad reference to Psalm 23). Welcome to the hell of war, I thought. Don't think I would say such a thing here nor anywhere. I could not believe anyone could say such a thing. I learned later that war makes people lose their moral compass. Ordinary men become monsters. On an outing in town one evening, as I was returning to base a drunk GI was trying to grab people passing on motorcycles so he could throw them down and possibly injure or kill them.
Today I read a sad story in the Wall Street Journal of a Russian Wagner group, private army recruit. Click here for the story. This man was recruited out of prison with the promise of freedom if he survived after six months of war. He did not know what he was getting into. He surrendered to the Ukrainians and was later turned over to the Russians in a prisoner exchange. Now, the Ukrainians knew that this would be a death sentence; yet they did it. The Russians brutally butchered the man upon his arrival into their hands. How can men be so brutal to each other? Life means nothing in such circumstances.
The Wagner Group is brutal in their treatment of their own soldiers. You do what you're ordered to do even if it means a suicide charge of enemy positions. If you retreat, you're shot by your own people. Welcome to the hell of war.
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