Veterans of Foreign Wars, Tell Me About Hating The Enemy

In My Humble Opinion
21

My late Dad was in WWII, ETO (northern Europe, he served on the fringes of the Bulge and near Remagen, to the linkup at Torgau).

He used several slurs for the Germans, mostly “Krauts”. He felt great bitterness about the war, but I don’t think he directed it against the Germans as a whole, mostly it was toward individuals and the situation in general. He was particularly unforgiving about the Hitler Youth…I think he felt bad for having to shoot at the little fanatics.

I know he loved German food (especially kraut, heh), spoke some German, and liked our German-American relatives well enough.

Sailboat

22

My dad was in Korea and knows a lot of guys from WWII. He never liked me taking Japanese in grad school. He calls them “Japs” and would never, ever, EVER buy a Japanese car. He doesn’t like the Germans either but he really hates the Japanese. I’m sure he’d have nothing against a specific Japanese person, on the other hand, just the idea of them.

He’s got nothing against Korean people, although I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t think North Korea is batshit crazy and gonna kill us all, so I guess you can’t really tell if he bears any prejudice.

23

My Father was involved in the SE Asia business, but mostly not in Vietnam. He was a civillian, and went on patrol ‘into the bush’ with people from nameless sources. He came back with scars and nightmares. The scars bother him not at all. The nightmares aren’t of him being hurt or about to be killed, but of him killing others. I’ve never once in my entire life heard him disparage his foes, except for their professional skills, or lack thereof. Mostly, he pitied them - They may have been good soldiers, but they were up against real killers, in places they thought were safe.

My father-in-law was in the Pacific, in WWII, in a (theoretically) non-combatant role. Racist though he was, I never once heard him speak ill of the Japanese.

I was a submariner in the latter days of the Cold War. We went places and did things I can’t tell you, but we faced deliberate and lethal hunts. Had any of those hunts been successful, you’d not be reading this post. Hate? Never. Fear? Only whilst being hunted or otherwise in immediate risk of being detected. Respect? When it was earned, it was given. Healthy caution? Always.

24

That kind of stuff really happened?

25

Sailor in my case. I was supporting maritime air from Sicily during the Yugoslavian conflict, and for a stretch there we were putting in 72 to 90 hour weeks.

The most I’ll say is that the Serbs who got involved in that conflict are just about the most disgusting human beings on the planet, and while there were some other war crimes on other sides there, they don’t hold a candle to what the Serbs did.

26

Big time.

27

Yup.

Read Blind Man’s Bluff. You’ll get to read about me. Not by name, though. :wink:

28

I just read “Scorpion Down”. Very interesting story. Have you seen it?

29

Not as yet, no.

30

In college I interviewed my Poli Sci teacher for my History class. He said something to the effect of, “I don’t hate those people. But you know, I don’t drive a Toyota or a Honda, either.”

He didn’t mention exactly what he’d been through, but he must have heard of the prisoner beheadings and such. It’s easy to understand him there.

31

Are you saying that the other side had orders to shoot to kill US subs? And you had the same orders as well? I thought hunter-killer subs just PING-ed each other. Sort of like underwater tag (sorry, my total knowledge about submarine hunting all come from reading Tom Clancy novels)

To the OP, like Nava, mine isn’t a foreign war:

  1. My father and grandparents had first hand experience of Communist insurgents during what is known in Malaysia as “The Emergency” (1948 up to 1970-ish). They lived in a rural part of Malaysia, practically next door to the rainforest which is where the communist tend to hang out. They would come out of the jungle now and then to the village to get food. Something like Seven Samurai or Magnificient Seven only with more guns. Needless to say, the villagers were pissed off everytime that happened.

  2. They were just referred to as “Kominis”. No more no less.

  3. Well, you see, my family’s Malay and the communist insurgents that terrorised this country 50 years ago were overwhelmingly Chinese. So my late grandparents (especially my grandfather) used to see Chinese-Malaysians as untrustworthy, treasonous bastards. My father still has residues of that prejudice even today. Me, I’m cool with everyone but I never experienced what they experienced: intimidation, woken up in the middle of the night by gun toting meanies asking for food and medication, the occasional hijacking of public transport and of course assasinations (but only if you squealed on them).

32

In general, no. Where we were, doing what we were doing? You’d have never even heard about us, outside of a quiet “overdue, presumed lost” report in the local news.

33

No combat experience myself, but I’ve had grandparents who fought in WWII and spoken to many WWII vets.

I’ve never once heard a WWII Veteran in this part of the world refer to the Germans as “Nazis”- it was always “Jerries”, “Krauts”, or “Germans”.

My dad used to be a reporter, and he went to a number of 50th Anniversary type deals in the early/mid '90s, where veterans from both sides re-visted places like Crete and Monte Cassino.

Dad said one of the fascinating things was talking to a group of German anti-tank gunners, who were recounting a story about the time they had set up their anti-tank gun to cover a road at Monte Cassino. They’re all having a cup of coffee when suddenly Englander Panzers showed up about 100m away, giving them a perfect broadside shot. Unfortunately, the officer with the key to the safety catch (or something similar) was off having a piss and by the time he got back four of the tanks were out of view, so they shot the fifth one then promptly relocated.

Half an hour later, dad was talking to some English tank crews, and a group of them were telling a story about how they were driving through some ruined village and suddenly realised they were in the middle of an intersection with a German anti-tank gun aimed right at them about 100m away… yet it didn’t shoot at them. Nor the next tank, nor the one after that, and when the fourth tank passed they were wondering what the hell was going on (they could see the German gun crew who were clearly trying to load the gun and bring it to bear), when the fifth tank suddenly blew up.

To cut a long story short, it turned out that these guys were the ones driving the tanks that the German gun crew he’d been speaking to earlier had spotted, but couldn’t shoot because Leutnant Hans had been off with his trousers down and his dick in his hand relieving himself against a wall. So, Dad gets them together and the Germans and the English vets were buying each other drinks, laughing, and reminiscing about the war together in no time at all.

Dad also said that he heard lots of stories about soldiers refusing to machine-gun tank crews escaping from burning tanks, not shooting soldiers because they saw they had a wedding ring or were carrying a wounded comrade, and also of both sides having shouted conversations with each other even as they were shooting at them.

I also knew a chap who’d been a Sunderland Flying Boat pilot during the war- he told me of the time they depth-charged a U-boat in the Atlantic somewhere, and saw it blow her tanks and surface. They circled overhead and saw the crew getting into liferafts, so they radioed the U-boat’s position to a nearby Royal Navy cruiser, which came and picked up the survivors. They waggled their wings at the Germans and left, on the theory that their quarrel was with the U-boat, not the crew. As the crew were going to be rescued and the U-boat was sunk, it was a good sortie all around and they certainly wouldn’t have to buy any drinks in the mess that night.

In short, it seems that most of the soldiers here respected the Germans as opponents- I’ve never come across anyone who said they hated the Germans- but there are rather a lot of people out there who won’t buy a Japanese car or appliance, as has already been mentioned.