mixed review

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2004)

I'm trying to respond to the German/foreign criticism some of which I share some of which I don't.
Prior to world war 2 the American army was the 35th largest in the world - the same size as the Portuguese army. So the American soldiers were civilians in uniform, a kind of partially trained militia. American foreign policy was based on an improvised garbled theory of collective security with the British empire (!?) and the Soviets (!?)
The German army was a professional force indoctrinated from a young age to become part of a military caste and to conform to a totalititarian ideology of revenge and conquest.
It is frankly easier to understand the psychological condition of the German soldier- he had been thoroughly trained to obey.
I don't think that the American soldiers died for the sake of France, I don't think that they died for sake of collective security, or capitalism (or keynesianism) or "the flag." I think they died the same way a firefighter will die evacuating an occupied building. No one has the right to attach an cock-eyed ideological significance to that.