I am repulsed by incidents like that but I hope I don't sound crass when I say that slaughtering innocent women and children has a greater impact on me.

Historically rape has been considered an almost acceptable spoil of victory in war, on a completely different level from ethic cleansing.

As an example, at the end of WWII, the Russian Army raped more German women by half than Jews who were killed in the holocaust. The holocaust is probably one of the top ten events in human history while the rapes are hardly a footnote. Perhaps as many as a million women committed suicide following their rape. No war crimes trials were held and to my knowledge not one offender was punished.

The guy you spoke to probably has justified his brutal act by seeing the girl as being associated with the VC and the fact that they didn't kill her. The same guy might cringe at the idea of killing women and children.

My comments are not to excuse the inexcusable, they are just thoughts on the historical human mindset on war and perhaps even an unpleasant side of our genetic makeup.