Ask the people of Georgia about their fond memories of Sherman, even though the last veteran of the Civil War is long dead.
Then extrapolate that affection out to Iraq.
We are still fighting the Civil War politically one hundred years later, and we all speak the same language and have a common cultural and political background. Imagine the effect on a group of people with whom we share neither language nor culture nor politics.
It's entirely possible that the war itself was not what was having a corrosive (I think this is a better word --eating away rather than wearing down) effect on him, but that his ability to conduct the war the way he did was a result of his mental illness.
You can continue to justify treating whole, complex human beings like objects. I will continue to reject this.