I spent a sizable amount of time taking in some of the horrors of World War II and that has changed my view about a lot of things. There were some very inhumane things done during World War II that makes me thankful to live in this time period and in this country. I realize peace has become more and more fragile since the beginning of time.

I really hadn’t studied anything as intense as World War II. Whenever I heard on the news that someone has died or had a crippling accident, I would think that’s too bad and shrug it off. Or when I might have heard something like one hundred people died in a natural disaster I’d think so what; I didn’t know those people.

But this study of World War II has started to match faces up with lives. They were people with families and friends, and hopes and dreams. They were people with lives. When I studied the civil war last year, it didn’t have a whole lot of an impact on me because there weren’t nearly as many pictures in that time, and even then they didn’t depict some of the horrors of battle. But now when I look at a picture of a sad Jew in a ghetto or a picture of prisoners of war lined up at a fence in a camp it really affects me. There’s just a look in their eyes that makes you think what might have it been like to be a Jewish person in Europe during World War II or a prisoner of war. But I’m sure that I have really have no idea of the sufferings they had to endure.

I would even feel bad for the Germans who were forced to fight for Hitler or when Russia stormed Berlin. Pictures of the Russians razing buildings in Berlin were pretty gripping. It’s hard not to feel bad for even the enemy. I feel a little sad for those that lost the war because so many people gave their lives. But by the same token, if they won the war, then the Americans would’ve lost. Even if some of the Axis were so dreadful, that doesn’t mean all of them deserved to suffer. The citizens just did what they were told and enlisted or followed orders.

The technologies of war have weakened any strong peace any country had with others, especially with the invention of the atom bomb. In wars before World War I there weren’t nearly as many casualties—the technology of war have greatly increased the casualties in other, more recent, wars. The use of aircraft, automatic guns, and many new tactics only added to the deaths.

It might be easier to imagine these deaths if you imagine it as if maybe a whole country just died off, and a large country too. All of their citizens just wiped out. This study has shown me an appalling side to the world we live in today.

Almost all the veterans we talked to said it was right against wrong or they we were always the good guys and anyone we fought against were bad. That was pretty common and I can understand why. They were fighting for freedom and even I can’t see why that would be wrong. Some of the veterans said their greatest accomplishment was getting back alive. But a lot of people didn’t survive.