He told me a story of unparalleled brutality he personally participated in that totally disgusted me. He seems to be completely unrepentant about it all. He thought it was funny. I will refuse to have anything to do with this man again.

I won't repeat it here because 1) I don't even know for sure if its true, 2) If true, it is an isolated case and isn't necessarily representative of any one army or country 3) I've heard similar stories occuring in other places, other wars, and other armies. Things like that happen in war, it does ugly things to people, not all people, but it is not a glorious crusade. It is a filthy business.

I just thank my lucky stars my own military experience spared me from being exposed to any of those horrors. I would like to think I would never have participated in them, and if I had witnessed them I would have tried to stop them, and failing that, I would have reported them and seen to it justice was done.

But I don't know that. Until you're there yourself, you'll never know how you would act under those circumstances.