Callous.

This is coolbert:

Soldiers, of whatever army, tend to NOT make good-will ambassadors for their nation.

The very nature of a soldier is to kill people and break things.

This is quite often done with relish.

All the training and inclinations of the soldier point him in this direction, killing people and breaking things.

Military operations of a less than violent nature, are sometimes a put-off to the highly trained and motivated military man.

He DOES want to perform his mission as trained, to kill people and break things.

 I think this is undeniable.

And this attitude DOES quite often results in a callous attitude among combat troops. A callous attitude that leads to behavior that would have been either unheard of or even unthinkable in peacetime.

Incidents of a callous nature HAVE been and ARE common in all wars fought by American troops.

World War Two was no exception. While American troops WERE liberators, they sometimes acted in a manner that DID antagonize the very people they were aiding and liberating.

The French for instance.

During the advance of American units in the days following the Normandy invasion, American troops quite often ran into signs in German saying, "Achtung, Meinen!! [attention mines!!].

Sometimes such signs DID indicate a mine field, sometimes NOT.

How to find out the true situation??

A solution, quick and dirty, was found. The solution was for American officers to order a French farmer to drive his herd of cattle in FRONT of advancing American troops. In this manner, mine-fields sown by retreating German forces COULD be detected in a safe manner. Let the French cattle set off the land mines. Better the cattle of a French farmer than an American soldier setting off a landmine. Such was the thinking.

And what of the French farmer? Was he going to refuse these armed men, even those that came to liberate him?? You can bet he didn't!!

And what to do when you find a Frenchman rifling through the baggage car of a U.S. troop train?

Going through the bags of the U.S. troops aboard that troop train, trying to find items of value to steal.

What do you as an infantry lieutenant decide when your men catch such a thieving Frenchman? A Frenchman you are purportedly risking your life to liberate from Nazi oppression! What to do?? Well, you tell your men, "OH, just take him and throw him off the train.!!" And this is done. The thieving Frenchman is flung bodily off the train to whatever fate awaits him. Death, dismemberment, or very serious injury. This is NOT for those American troops to worry about. Swift justice is the order of the day.

In war, this sort of thing DOES go on!!

[the above anecdotal accounts provided to this blogger by D.E.,  lieutenant, U.S. Army. Served in Normandy in the days just after the D-Day landings.]

coolbert.