WASHINGTON, D.C. Jan 12 (DPI) – US news outlets made much this week of an internet video depicting US Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban enemy – but several readers  were quick to provide some context and insight about the horrors of war.

True, nearly half of the NYTimes.com reader comments (251 by 2pm 1/12) shared an outrage over the soldiers’ conduct, and more than a few of those declared that such battlefield behavior was a “summary statement of US policy.”

But a surprising number, while not defending the behavior of the soldiers, wanted to remind others that war isn’t quite where normal behavior should be found or expected.   Many of those were highest recommended among all comments.

Until the Vietnam War — recall the My Lai massacre and trial of Lt. William Calley — anything other that noble and virtuous battlefield conduct got little attention. Today such revelations are part of many war narratives. Steven Spielberg’s and Tom Hanks’s 2010 miniseries “The Pacific” depicted more than one WWII Marine extracting with bayonet knives gold teeth from Japanese dead — an atrocity that elicited more fascination than outrage from the reviewing public when the series was released.

Still, the immediacy of an Afghanistan battlefield atrocity struck a raw nerve with many readers, even those who concluded that non-combatants may not understand the savagery of war.  This post received more than 30 recommendations: “I suspect that many, if not all, of the outraged posters here have never been in combat.. While that doesn’t disqualify them from having an opinion on the matter, it does disqualify them from having an informed opinion.

“These are Marines; they’re engaged every day in mortal combat; they’ve been exposed to terrors and horrors that most people will never see; the tension in their young lives is almost crushing.

“Their actions, while crude, express contempt for an enemy who hates them. That contempt may help to keep them alive. These Marines and their comrades are trying to stay alive the best way they know how. A few may also be trying to keep their sanity. (Patrick, Oregon)

Highest Recommended Comment: “If we were able to videotape the war in Afghanistan, or any other country for that matter, we would all get physically ill. War is evil, inhumane, morally corrupt and absolutely the worst way to solve the problems of the World. Yet, most Americans will reflexively stand and cheer at stadium flyovers, sing God Bless America and thank Americans oversees killing foreigners for protecting our freedom. The only way to keep your sanity in this War mongering nation is to create a false narrative of what actually occurs during War. Occasionally, reality creeps in by way of a leaked video. Fortunately for the war profiteers, most Americans aren’t watching, or simply cannot believe their eyes. Fight on!” (ScottW, Chapel Hill)

“As a former Marine, I guess I don’t have a problem with it. After all which is worse blasting someone to pieces with high powered rifles and grenades or urinating on a dead body. All things being equal they are dead which was the point after all and don’t know that this happened.

After what the Taliban etc have done to our living soldiers this pales in comparison. Don’t make it right but it is war. “(HB, Raleigh)

“We teach these young men to kill, to do it automatically and on command and the thing they are to kill without a moments hesitation is another human being. The problem here is that before we teach them this, they were living in a country very unlike the Taliban run society where hangings and beheadings are as common place as buying ice cream in summer here. So just how does the U.S. Military get around this problem?
“It is simple really. Before I was sent off to be an infantry ‘grunt’ in the Vietnam War we were schooled in calling the enemy ‘Dinks’, or ‘Slopes’ or ‘Charlie’, and each was generally used in conjunction with the F word or some similar slur. Once you get, ” In Country ” and you see a few friends corpses, courtesy of ‘F’in Charlie’, the rest is downhill. We used to tie the bodies together and drag them in a chain behind an APC (armoured Personnel Carrier). I had a CO who threw one across the hood of the Jeep and drove up & down main street in the Vietnamese Village, like a deer across the hood of your car back home during hunting season.

“So let’s not blame these Marines for treating the things they kill like anything of value, contempt makes butchering them so very much more sensible, and certainly less traumatic to ones respect for human life. After all we don’t send in the Marines to do sensitivity training, we send them in to kill, mercilessly.” (Ed Burke, Long Island NY)