Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who worked with a number of Vietnam veterans, reported that the desire to revenge the death of a buddy inspired some GIs to reenlist for additional tours of duty.⁸⁵⁹ One of them was author Philip Caputo: “Finally, there was hatred, a hatred buried so deep that I could not then admit its existence. I can now, though it is still painful. I burned with a hatred for the Viet Cong and with an emotion that dwells in most of us, one closer to the surface than we care to admit: a desire for retribution. I did not hate the enemy for their politics, but for murdering Simpson, for executing that boy whose body had been found in the river, for blasting the life out of Walt Levy. Revenge was one of the reasons I volunteered for a line company. I wanted a chance to kill somebody.”⁸⁶⁰

These sorts of desires for revenge, which ascribe the necessity of horrific and brutal actions to experiences of loss, can be generalized. With allusions to the biblical idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the enemy’s behavior can be defined as a transgression that demands a payback in kind. In World War II, for instance, an American GI wrote home about the requisitioning of German apartments: “It’s a really rough deal and these Krauts are getting a good belly full of their own medicine.”⁸⁶¹ Desire for revenge was one of the central themes in a comprehensive study of American soldiers’ attitudes during World War II made by a group of authors under the direction of Samuel A. Stouffer.⁸⁶²

Not all soldiers, of course, were able to live out their desires for vengeance against those they considered their enemies. Sometimes, they were hindered by comrades or sudden, unexpected feelings of empathy for the adversary. The desire to perform one’s tasks efficiently can also act as a counterweight, as is evident in a letter from a senior German staff medic in Afghanistan: “At the very latest when the alarm sounds for the second time in a bunker, even the greatest philanthropist will develop desires for bloody revenge. The simplest solution in military terms, the one favored by soldiers here, is a major artillery counterstrike. Technically speaking, this is no big problem. You locate the target, point your guns and fire away. It takes less than a minute. The first time the enemy shelled us they had bad luck, but the Taliban aren’t stupid. The next time they attacked, they used longer cables and fired their rockets from a spot next to a kindergarten.”⁸⁶³ Yet even such reflections and observations about the potentially self-defeating nature of desires for revenge, comparable to those in all situations of war,⁸⁶⁴ underscore the significance of the vengeance motif in the daily lives of soldiers.

TAKING NO PRISONERS

During World War II, POWs were treated in radically different fashions. Some were dealt with according to a strict interpretation of the Geneva Convention, while others were put to death en masse. While only 1 to 3 percent of Anglo-American POWs died in German captivity, 50 percent of Red Army prisoners perished⁸⁶⁵—a figure that exceeded even the high numbers of Allied soldiers who died in Japanese captivity. The Wehrmacht decision to let Russian POWs starve to death, which soldiers discussed in the surveillance protocols, was something that went beyond the normally accepted boundaries of war and can only be understood in the context of the Nazi campaigns of annihilation. That is the reason why German POWs were disgusted at how Russian prisoners were being treated and even sympathized with them.⁸⁶⁶ Although most German soldiers never came into contact with German POW camps, many had witnessed the transport of prisoners from the front lines and had a good idea of how captured enemies were being mistreated. The German soldiers remained mere witnesses, though, with scant opportunities for changing what they found objectionable.

The situation was different on the battlefield. Here, practically every foot soldier was an active participant who decided for himself whether or not to kill his enemy. In the heat of battle, questions of whether an enemy taken prisoner would be allowed to live were subject to constant renegotiation. Gray areas could persist for hours or even days, especially when the troops that had taken prisoners became embroiled in new battles.