My Dad and my Father In Law are both WW11 vets, both 85 now. United States Army, both served in the Philippines. My Dad was a medic, my FIL infantry. Neither of them talk much about the war. It was horrifying for them both.
My Dad too, cannot watch MASH without having nightmares from the war. Last fall he did talk to me a bit about some of his memories from the war. Without going into a lot details, the memories and horrors of the time he spent in the Philippines tending the wounded and dying still haunt him 65 years later. He cried when he talked about how hatred from that time spills into life today. How he can't like or trust a Japanese person today, from what happened in his life 65 years ago. It makes his feel terrible, he is not a hateful person inside, but war destroys many things we never even realize.
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