All of us who have been in combat can sympathize with what happened. I know there's going to be a lot of second-guessing. My comment is, I wasn't there. Cooper, who was wounded during the Tet Offensive, said the routine savageries and absurdities of life in the combat zone sometimes called into question whether there could be such a thing as the ethics of war. Combat can cloud judgments, Cooper said.
Emotions veer wildly almost moment to moment, from profound fear to exhilaration.
Kerrey's a real war hero. We should treat him with respect because he's been there. In a New York Times Magazine article to be published Sunday, witnesses say Kerrey deliberately ordered the killings of civilians so his men could safely retreat from the village. If that allegation is proved true, it will be much more difficult to attribute the deaths to the confusion of war. Several veterans said they found the allegation, which Kerrey has denied, unlikely.