Yes, I understand your perspective on that, Risky. I also have a high regard for the living who have made it through, and I have a VERY high regard for those who fought hardest and bravest in any conflict, whether they lived or died.

I assure you that most soldiers in the German and Japanese armies believed that they were defending their country and their idea of freedom...against deceitful and vicious foes. That's what young men usually believe when they're fighting a war. That's what the media and the authorities and their officers all tell them, after all! And they're usually quite young men. The young are more easily taken in by such propaganda, not having had much experience yet.

Lee was not fighting for slavery, he was fighting for Virginia. He was personally opposed to slavery both before and during the Civil War, but he felt that the primary issue was defending his home state against foreign invasion. I believe that was the main concern of a majority of Confederate soldiers...defending the home ground. That's why they fought so damned hard, because their own homes were at their backs. No, I wouldn't expect most black people to admire them, but a lot of blacks supported the Southern war effort at the time (and a lot of others didn't).

Now, as to who I admire...

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa was probably Japan's finest naval fighter pilot. Flying a Zero, he shot down about 100 Allied aircraft, and never even sustained a bullet hit to his airplane. Flying against much more powerful and faster American Corsair fighters from squadrons such as Pappy Boyington's, he shot down 45 of them from June to August 1943 with his slower and more fragile Zero. Meanwhile, most of his young friends were killed in those same desperate battles. Nishizawa became very depressed because so many of his friends had been killed. He volunteered for a kamikaze mission in October '44, having had a presentiment of his own approaching death. That request was refused by his commanders, because he was considered too valuable a pilot to be expendable. A few days later he was killed in an unarmed transport plane which was taking him and some other pilots to pick up new fighter planes.

America's greatest aces in the Pacific, such as Bong, Boyington, or McCampbell shot down around 30-40 planes apiece...

To not honor Nishizawa would be ridiculous. It makes no difference who he fought for. The reason I honor him is simply because I know a lot about him...just like most Americans might know a lot about Davy Crockett or Pappy Boyington.

The only reason not to honor him would be sheer ignorance of what he faced and what he accomplished under the most desperate odds between 1941 and October '44. Brave people worthy of honor are found in all uniforms.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Germans, French, British, Austrians, Russians, Serbians, Belgians and all the rest who fought in World War I would have been far better off if they had talked it over first and not fought at all. Amen to that!!! I could say the same about the other wars that followed.

I do not say that opposing sides are necessarily morally equivalent by any means...only that their rank and file are normally convinced of their own side's moral rightness, that's all. It's a question of selective focus. The Southern soldiers focused on defending their sacred home ground, the Yankees focused on restoring the Union and freeing the slaves. People are highly subjective creatures, and easily convinced of their own side's rectitude and the other side's perfidy.

To see this is to have compassion, and to respect one's enemy on the individual human level, even if you disagree with their national politics.

- LH