I had a conversation with my uncle, a WWII vet, after Thanksgiving dinner. It went kind of like this:
“The biggest difference, I think, between what’s going on now and back during the war, is that you knew who the bad guys were. All of the civilians in Germany had left the area, and had gone to Czechoslovakia, or anywhere else that wasn’t in the combat zone. So when we were on line, anyone on the other side, you knew he was a Nazi, and you knew that you could shoot him. Nowadays, you don’t know who’s on your side and who is not.”
“We were on line for 38 days during the Battle of the Bulge. I remember one day, we lost 30 men, and over 70 wounded during one attack. We had replacement units coming to the front all of the time to cover the losses. It wasn’t anything to hear of entire companies, even battalions, being lost. You don’t see that now.”
Both of these snippets of my conversation with my uncle tell us a lot about how much things have changed. Let’s take the first snippet. Combatants versus Non-Combatants has been a huge issue during the recent battles in the war on terror. Rights of captured terrorists, rules of engagement, hostile intent definitions, and detainee ops have been hotly debated in the political and military arenas. Back in WWII, this was a fairly simple concept: shoot the Nazis. Because WWII formed the basis for which all future wars are judged, we view the current conflict in its context: black versus white, red versus blue. The only problem is that war has changed, and we are not fighting a 3rd generation war anymore, we are fighting 4th generation wars in a grey world.
Snippet #2 is also telling: the differences between casualty rates are striking. According to this report:
The death-to-wounded ratio has also improved, the study found. Nearly 8 people are wounded for every one who dies in Operation Iraqi Freedom versus the 1 death to 1.7 wound ratio found during World War II.
We have not had anything resembling the troop loss that the US endured during WWII, where entire aircraft carriers could were lost in the Pacific and brigades of troops were being ground against the German war machine. In Iraq and Afghanistan, troop losses, while tragic, have remained historically low. That is a testament to our technological advantage in battlefield medicine, tactics, techniques, and procedures during operations, and a focus on evacuation procedures during the planning process.
However, generations of soldiers and warfare still maintain some connections –my uncle welcomed me home, and had a look in his eye that indicated that he knew what it meant to be back.
When a B24 or a 17 went down that was 10 men, A thousand plane raid with 300 aircraft lost……..do the math.
What is even more unbelievable were the losses right here in the US with all the training accidents!
I have always said the worst thing about the first Gulf War was that it conveyed to people who had no concept of warfare that it is no more than a vidio game and no one gets hurt. Just press a button and bye bye building!
My Uncle Anthony was in one of those replacement units. His specialty was mechanic, but they needed soldiers to hold the line… so he was issued a carbine and sent to the Ardennes.
He was one of the lucky ones. He came home.
I think his point about casualties is well taken.
I am sure your uncle believed that all the Germans in the combat zone were active Nazis and I am sure that was what he was told. I don’t believe that was actually the case. I beleiver you will find that there were many civilians in the combat areas, both in France and Germany itself (to say nothing of Italy, the Balkans and other areas of operation).
This raises the question of who is a “proper” target – remember the Geneva Conventions were not adopted until after WWII, partly in response to what happened during that war. Even the Hague Conventions only went back to 1905 or so. A lot of this is _very_ recent stuff.
It also raises the question of what one does in fighting a group or country in the grip of “bad” leaders, even if they came to power lawfully in accord with their constitution.
I know the doctrine; I wish I had answers to what is morally right – I am not sure what we do today results in shorter wars. It seems to result in shorter battles, but then there is that pesky Phase IV…..
Andrewdb
-It’s a political debate that belongs no where near the battlefield. Terrorists don’t apply to the Geneva conventions, the prime example of a situation like this is the one described by Marcus Luttrell in his recent book “Lone Survivor” about Seal Team 10. When you start bringing up the morally right argument, you’ve already crossed back behind a line we should have left behind when going to war. It sucks, but it’s that hard, and it’s why we shouldn’t do it unless we really mean it. We go hard, or go home, that’s it. Lead follow or get out of they way. No quarter, whatever, but that is the understanding that should have been put before congress, regardless of the reasons, so we wouldn’t have this bickering back and forth now between liberals and conservatives on who to shoot on what day and when b/c of the scarf they are wearing or the length of the beard. Past that, the moral choices get a lot easier…
Mustang,
I must comment…there were no raids in which 300 bombers were shot down. If memory serves, I think 64 lost in one day was the most…still, 640 crewmen killed, wounded, and/or captured. My father was one of them, a POW for more than a year.