Recently, I watched the classic movie The Guns of Navarone with Gregory Peck. Set in the Aegean Sea during World War II, it’s the story of a small band of soldiers sent to take out a German fortress which is a threat to Allied ships. Of course, our heroes can’t just go in and destroy the enemy’s guns, they have to suffer through a series of ordeals on the way. And they can’t just keep the mission to themselves, they have to interact with innocent bystanders and beautiful women.
Gregory Peck, David Niven, and friends
I’m not here to tell you the entire plot of the movie, only one part that got me thinking. An officer gets seriously wounded, so they take him into a Greek village for medical attention. There are Nazis in town, and the villagers try to hide our heroes from them. When the enemy finds out, they destroy the town in retribution.
What caught my attention was that the Germans made the people leave their homes before they bombed them. It’s heartbreaking enough to have your home destroyed. It’s even worse when your life and that of your loved ones is put in jeopardy. At least the Germans spared the villagers’ lives.
Listening to the news about the war in Ukraine, we are shown a different scenario: civilians deliberately targeted, even when they try to evacuate, bombs dropped on hospitals and schools.
In the movie, the Nazis are hardly pictured as nice guys, but other than the SS officers, who are sociopaths, the German soldiers show a little compassion, first for the wounded American officer, then for the Greek villagers.
How true to life this is, I can’t say. The movie was released in 1961, nearly two decades after the war. By this time, hatred toward the Germans had softened. In fact, we were on good terms with them. Did German soldiers actually show compassion for their conquered foe? War creates atrocities. Can it also bring out compassion?
My father served in the Pacific theater in World War II. He wouldn’t talk much about the war, certainly not about combat. I don’t know what horrors he was exposed to, but although the rest of the world moved on and made friends with the Japanese, he harbored a life-long hatred of them. He even disapproved when his children bought Japanese-made cars.
His attitude toward other Asians was quite different. When one of my sisters brought home a Korean friend, he was okay with that. When I went on a tour of China, he expressed admiration for the Chinese people, if not their government.
But when he had personal contact with one of the enemy, he had a different attitude. Dad told about an incident when he was stationed in Hawaii. A Japanese soldier was being held prisoner in the camp. One day he tried to escape but didn’t make it out of camp before he was recaptured. For some reason, Dad expressed compassion toward that young man. He identified with the fear the Japanese soldier must have felt, being held captive by the Americans.
Dad in uniform. He’s the short one.
I grew up during the Cold War. In high school, one required class was Problems of American Democracy, in which we were indoctrinated against all things communist. (I don’t understand why some authorities think young people are just itching to go over to the “dark side.”) Perhaps that accounted for my reaction the first time I saw Red Army soldiers in China.
I was fascinated by the history and culture of China. One of the first historical sites we visited was crawling with Chinese soldiers. I felt fearful, paranoid, as though I thought they were watching the evil American tourists, waiting for a chance to arrest us. Actually, they were on leave, tourists like myself. By the end of the two weeks, I saw these soldiers for what they were, teenagers in uniform. Familiarity does not breed contempt.
Back to the war between Russia and Ukraine. We admire the heroism of the Ukrainians and ache for their suffering. We condemn the actions of Putin’s government. However, most of us don’t blame the Russian people. We sympathize with them because of what their government is doing to them.
In the throes of battle, compassion is in short supply. Yet we can identify with the hopes and fears of other humans, even in time of war. Perhaps if we cultivate more compassion, we can learn to avoid war.
marieqrogers 