![]() ![]() Nothing is cut and dried.ĭuring his years as a young academic historian raging in the pages of The Evening Sun, one of Ambrose's favorite targets was the military-industrial complex - that insidious partnership between those who make the weapons of mass destruction and those who deploy them - that Dwight Eisenhower warned of so apocalyptically before his departure from the White House. "Three men came along: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon." True leadership vanished. The disillusionment began at the end of the Eisenhower presidency, he believes. Somewhere along the way, Ambrose says, Americans stopped believing. What did it mean to the Vietnamese? It meant rape, pillage, houses burning down, meaningless killing. "Then," Ambrose continued, "think of a similar squad of GI's in Vietnam. It was the proudest moment in our history." The sight of a squad of American soldiers in Europe meant candy, cigarettes. "That was the response, with one exception. ![]() Plain terror because the arrival of such men meant the certainty of rape, pillage, houses burned down, the meaningless killing of people. Terror by Poles or Russians if it were German. Terror was the response, he says: Terror by Germans if it were a Russian squad. What was the response to the sight of that squad by different people?" Think of a squad of soldiers with rifles in Europe, only 12 men with a 19-year-old corporal as their leader. More people were killed than in any year in history. "It was the worst year in the world's history. ![]()
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