You have absolutely no idea what a "war criminal" is. None. The kids weren't flawed, the system was. If you want to talk war criminal, you would need to take it up with Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, and Ford.

By repeating that mantra you are condemning, in your conservative mind, most if not all of the line people who were in Vietnam following orders.

I knew a young officer one time who was told to take a vehicle and some people out to a "free fire zone" and try out a new grenade launcher. He radioed back that the zone was a rice paddy with a fellow working in it with his water buffalo, and there were a couple of huts on the west side.

The answer came back that the map showed it was free fire.

The officer asked that the information be checked with a superior.

The answer came back from the superior in no uncertain terms that the free fire zone was the free fire zone, the man and buffalo were unwarranted trespassers who shouldn't be there and were therefore badguys, and to hurry up.

Well, he avoided the person and did as little harm as possible. Risked the pique of the superior by disobeying a (deniable) order, this time. And was ordered to commit a war crime.

You really don't have the slightest idea as to how these things happen. You're like a kid who has heard a mother cry in childbirth, and runs around for the next 40 years yelling that she said she hated is father. "But you said!!"

Sooner or later someone would need to slap the shit out of him.

You should confine yourself to stories about programming, or whatever.

Arf (My Lai was different, Bow. In degree, in degree.)