In reply to:
Many many veterans I know have no qualms about what they have done or seen.
Whilst I can't argue with your experience with vererans, I don't believe that this is generally the case. I'll freely admit that I don't know a lot of War veterans, WW2 or otherwise, be certinaly the ones that I have spoken to, family members on the whole, appear fine, but a small amount of prompting brings back memories that are sheer horror. At least one memebr of my family had consistance and recurrant nightmares up until he died several years ago. That's nearly 50 years of nightmares, and he wasn't even one of the men who discovered the 'Final Solution' in Germany.
In reply to:
I dare say that most of the veterans that have a problem with what they have seen and done have been veterans that were fighting in the viet-cong.
This makes it sound like you think that WW2 was a walk in the park.
In reply to:
This was only an issue because they were fighting a terribly ruthless people in which not only able bodied men were doing the fighting, but also women and children. I have heard man horror stories of a 4 year old vietnamese child walking up to an american camp with a bomb strapped to its chest. What do you do? Shoot an infant? If it means protecting yourself, you have to. These are unfortunate situations that no man should ever have to deal with.
Which is really rather the point that I was making. I don't want to be in the situation to have to make that choice, although the chances of someone wanting to blow me up in a non-war situation is extremely small.
Having a gun in your hands just allows you to make life/death choices against other people - I don't want to *ever* be in a situtation where I can choose, or not, the life or death of another human. Not ever, not even in a court (thankfully the UK has no death sentences any more, except for High Treason and Piracy).
As for your story about the guy in the car - imagine you are him. And you are just wounded. You are hitchhiking because you are scared/injured (as he was)/whatever. I don't think that you pulling a gun on him stopped him attacking you, it probably just scared the crap out of him. I know that I'd have been scared stupid. I'm not convinced that if he was a nutter who was tricking you and wanted to kill/rape/whatever you, that the gun on thepassenger seat would have bothered him in the slightest.
Net effect of having a gun in that situation, you scared an innocent man.
Well worth it.
Anyway, we're never going to agree on this issue - you stick with guns and Gun crime and I'll stay over here in Blighty with fewer guns and fewer gun deaths, thanks.
Cheers,
Paul.
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